Time to Check Your Mower

Global warming or not, Mother Nature has been right on schedule with March winds and April showers. There are some things that even Al Gore shouldn’t fool with.

If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to do a spring checkup on the lawn mower. I took one look in the garage last week and just closed the door. Left front tire is flat. A couple of days later, I took a deep breath and went out there again, mower key in hand. It wouldn’t start. Resisting the urge to kick something, I closed the door again and called the Mower Doctor who makes house calls.

If, on the other hand, you’re handy with tools and mowers and such, in the above situation you should check the fuel line. After sitting all winter, the line may just have air in it, as opposed to the battery being deader than four o’clock. Check the spark plug for a spark. You might just need to file down the connector. See if the air filter is clogged. If all those things check out okay, providing you know where all those things are, and your mower still won’t start, call the Mower Doctor.

Bare patches in one’s lawn present a conundrum to homeowners, particularly in the south, where wide expanses of green are preferred. No grass means dirt and mud are tracked onto carpets or kitchen tiles, brought inside by young and old – people and dogs. But, the better maintained the lawn is the more maintenance it requires. On the other hand, once a beautiful lawn is well established, maintenance becomes routine and not so terribly much work.

Short cuts in lawn maintenance seldom produce desired results. Just throwing out a handful of seed every now and then without preparing the ground properly beforehand doesn’t yield a patch of beautiful green grass. Regular maintenance should include cutting, fertilizing, watering and preventing weeds.

Intended for early spring, weed and feed lawn fertilizers contain nitrogen, phosphate and potash, which are essential for a lush lawn, plus a herbicide. This pre-emergent herbicide prevents weeds from successfully germinating and thus prohibits the weeds from starting. That’s wonderful unless you, like The Neighbor, enjoy the colorful yellow, purple, white and blue blooms of the weeds already going to town in the yard.

ßsIt’s a trifle late to apply a weed and feed product to your lawn around here since the chickweed and all its accompanying weedy friends have emerged already. But, just in case, a good rule of thumb is that when you see daffodils, forsythia and dogwoods start to bloom, it’s time to apply the pre-emergent product. That represents about a three-week time span, so now, when the dogwoods are ready to bloom, is the very latest you should weed and feed.

Warm season grasses start growing from the roots up as the warmer months approach. At this stage of the game, be sure to read the label on the pre-emergence product carefully so you won’t be retarding the growth of your good grass while trying to kill the weeds. For those of us who missed the early application, another weed and feed application may be made in late spring or early summer, which includes a herbicide designed to kill weeds that have successfully emerged.