Crabgrass my summertime nemesis

When is the perfect time to treat for crabgrass? That question (and a few more) were asked of me early this morning at the Flower & Patio show.

Here in Indiana we have been frozen most of the winter (this is unusual for us) and normally I've begun to purchase the crabgrass preventative and dust off the spreader by now.  Lucky for me John Orick of Purdue University was hanging out this morning with us and he is a "Turf Guy".  He says wait, as long as we have it on the lawn by the first week of April we should be okay this year.

Here is a great document from Purdue University on Crabgrass control

http://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/AY/AY-10-W.pdf

This photo could have been of my lawn last summer.  Brand new lawn applied by a professional landscape company (courtesy of our home builder) we still found ourselves with the unwelcome crabgrass visitor. By this time it was too late our only control method was to physically pull it out (which we did).   No it did not arrive in the sod, it chose to make itself at home between the squares.

Our back yard was a different problem, we pretty much only had crabgrass.  Making the best of the situation we allowed most of them to stay with us for the season.

After speaking with "The Turf Guy" for a little bit longer I may try to spread some very early grass seed this week and see if maybe (keeping fingers crossed) we can get the back lawn to flourish this year.  Our backyard parties go so much better when guests are not standing in mud. If the growing of grass doesn't go as planned our next step will be to completely hard scape the yard!  Starting with a Bocce Ball court, large fish pond and extensive patio areas. I'm starting to think this might be the way to go.

Do you have any tried and true tips or tricks that you use for your lawn?

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