Horticulture Hotline 05/16/23
By Bill Lamson-Scribner
This weather is crazy. I can’t decide whether to run the heat or the air conditioner! This type of weather is why our grass cannot decide whether to stay dormant or to grow. The dry, windy weather has made the environmental conditions part of the ‘disease triangle’ less of a factor, so disease has been less of an issue. Less mosquitoes so far, but so recent high tides might change that. Mosquitoes are weak flyers so the winds have helped a lot.
With this crazy weather, it is a good time to go through your irrigation (or get a professional go through it) and make sure it is going to be ready to go for another year. In Possum’s we regularly get asked, “how much should I run my irrigation?” Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to that question – maybe a future Horticulture Hotline! An inch of water a week is a decent rule of thumb. With the wind and new leaves being formed, I might go a little higher. Having the ground moist to an 8-inch depth is another rule of thumb. Using wetting agents is a big plus!
Knowing the square footage of your grass areas and bed areas are key to applying any fertilizer or control product correctly. Whenever we sell a bag of fertilizer at Possum’s we are going to ask, “how big is your yard?” We need to know if you need one bag or more than one bag. Some of our bags might be able to treat your yard twice. That is nice to know because that cuts the price per application in half, and lets you know you still have product waiting in the garage for your next application (like finding that McDonald’s French fry at the bottom of the bag). With the nice weather we are having, now is a great time to get out there and measure the yard.
I can remember several times hearing different variations of this same answer to my question while at the counter at Possum’s. “How many square feet is your yard?” Rough answer,” well, last year I put out that bag that covers 5000 square feet and it was perfect for my yard, so I must have 5000 square feet.” Sorry, wrong answer.
Based on a pound of nitrogen, we sell 50-pound bags that cover as much as 23,000 square feet and as little as 1000 square feet. Unfortunately, the bag does not know the size of our yards or how fast we walk.
In the old days, yards were mostly square or rectangular, and they were easy to measure. Now most yards have curvy bed lines that sweep across the landscape, making them more difficult to measure. If you can break the yard up into little squares or rectangles, and measure the length and the width then you can get your square footage. Length multiplied by width will give you your square footage. Add up all the squares and rectangles that you measured the square feet of, and you will come up with the square footage of your yard.
If this sounds like total “Greek or Geek” to you, ask a landscaper, a realtor, a landscape architect, someone that works with floors or carpets, an engineer, a construction worker, someone who pours driveways, or anyone else that regularly needs to measure the square footage of something to help you. Some golfers are good at pacing off areas. Your plat map from when you purchased your house might help as well.
Now, there are even websites that you can log onto and they will tell you the square footage of your yard. Of course, I like to do it the old fashion way – length times width.
I know this measuring seems like a pain, but most of us stay in a house for several years or decades. A little pain spread over several years of having very useful information is worth it.
Once you measure the yard, put the measurements in about 5 to 10 locations throughout your house, your car (so you have it with you when you go to buy product) and the garage, so you do not lose them. Come into the camera phone age and take a picture of the measurements so you have the information when you come into the store. I have learned over the years that I put information like that in one “special place” so I do not lose the information. I then forget where that “special place” is!
