Professional Lawn Care | Serving Lewsiville, Highland Village, Flower Mound, Coppell, Castle Hills

Meiers Landscape Maintenance

Lewisville, TX 75067
(972) 365 - 8772

Author Archives: MeiersLandscape

What happens if it rains?

Our crews try to stay on schedule as best as we can. We have a lot of clients who are kenneling their dogs on mow day. If it rains early in the week by the time Thursday or Friday rolls around, no one remembers that it rained all day on Monday or Tuesday and our phone blows up with people thinking they were overlooked. For this reason, we always try to stay on schedule as much as possible.

In a perfect world, we would always wait for the grass to be completely dry and the mud too. However, during 2015, it rained almost every day during March, April, May & June and Grapevine Lake flooded FM 2499 several times. If we had waited for everything to dry out, we would have been fired by 100% of
our clients because no one is going to be that understanding when their lawn is ankle deep and they’ve hired us to mow it. Ultimately, there are far more clients who prefer that we stay on schedule in the event of rain than those who will throw a tantrum if the lawn is mowed when it’s wet.

We have been doing this for 14 years and we know for sure, if we mow and there is a light rain coming down and the client is home, we are very likely to get an irate call and probably fired. However, in 14 years of doing this, we have never once received a call from an irate client who was at work when we
mowed in wet conditions. Perception is 99% of this complaint. The end result is the same either way.

People think we have ruined their lawn, but after it dries out, everything is fine. If there are still mud tracks in the lawn after we mow, they go away as soon as the sprinklers run the next time.

Trees and Shrubs Chemical Treatment

First, realize, there is nothing natural about a dark green, weed free lawn.  They don’t exist in nature.  That’s why a lawn needs chemical treatments.

Trees and shrubs, on the other hand, do exist in nature.  They shouldn’t need our help to survive and be happy.

If your plants were selected properly by the landscape designer, they probably won’t ever have any pest problems.  The only time a tree or shrub will need our help to survive is if it isn’t tolerant of the weather, pests or soils found in the north Texas area.

For example, in our area, we see a lot of gold spot euyonymous installed in residential landscapes.  This plant is a magnet for scale.  It shouldn’t be planted here in the first place.  It isn’t conducive to the pests found in the north Texas area.

For these reasons, we do not offer a chemical program for trees and shrubs.  If you have pests attacking your shrubs, the smartest thing to do is replace them with plants that are more tolerant of the area.

TIP: As a home owner, the most important thing you can do for your plants is make sure you are not watering at night.  When you water in the middle of the night, the water doesn’t evaporate until the sun comes up.  It sits on the leaf blades for several hours.  This is perfect for fungal activity.  The best time to water is in the early morning, right around sun-up, unless there is a hard freeze.

 

Watering Your Lawn

Time Of Day

We recommend you water the lawn at dawn.  Watering during the day causes too much loss from evaporation & wind.  Watering at night can cause fungus problems because the water droplets stay on the leaf surface until the sun hits them the following morning…they don’t evaporate at night.  By watering at dawn, the loss from evaporation & wind is minimal.

Inspection of Your Sprinkler System

We recommend you run your sprinkler system during the day a few times each year and visually inspect the heads in each zone.  Make sure the rotating sprinkler heads are still rotating back and forth.   Make sure the nozzles aren’t clogged.  Make sure there are no busted heads.

Yellow Areas In The Lawn

Very few sprinkler systems have 100% coverage.  During drought conditions, the yellow areas in your lawn will tell you exactly where you are not getting adequate coverage from your sprinkler system.  Even if your sprinklers are getting the yellow areas wet, they are not getting enough water to those areas.  As you move out from the sprinkler head, less and less water is hitting the soil.  The closer you are to the sprinkler head, the more water the soil gets.

May 1st thru October 1st

We recommend you set your sprinklers to run three days a week.  If your sprinklers have a fixed spray pattern, run each zone for 20 minutes.  If your sprinklers rotate back and forth, run each zone for 30 minutes.  Keep an eye out for muddy areas that aren’t draining properly and adjust as necessary.  During the heat of the summer it is helpful to occasionally soak the lawn by running the sprinklers two or three times in a row when you are home on a weekend or a day off.

October 1st thru May 1st

During this period, one time per week should be sufficient.  Fixed pattern spray heads should still run for  10 to 20 minutes and rotating sprinklers should run for 20 to 30 minutes.  It is important that you do not turn your sprinklers off during the winter.  Even though your lawn is dormant, the roots are still alive and they still need moisture.  Allowing your lawn to dry out during the winter promotes freeze damage.  If you have st augustine grass, keeping the soil moist during freezing temperatures is especially important.  The moisture in the soil acts as a conveyance mechanism to draw the heat from the earth’s core up to the soil surface.  Lawns in dry soils will always have more freeze damage than lawns in moist soils.  Do not run the sprinklers during freezing temperatures below 28 degrees as this can damage shrubs and flowers.

Watering St Augustine lawns with cool over night lows in spring & fall

One of the most common problems we see with St Augustine lawns is fungus problems in the spring and fall.  Symptoms can include yellowing of leaf color, stringy appearance of grass just over the soil with few leaf blades and a general thinning or patchiness of the lawn.  Fungus loves cool temperatures and damp conditions.  Once you get it, there is very little, chemically, that can be done.  We would rather see you under-water your st Augustine lawn in the spring and fall then over-water it.  Too much water on st Augustine lawns in the spring and fall is a recipe for a sick lawn.  If you have st Augustine, make sure you don’t over water when night time temperatures are dipping below 70 degrees.

Programming Your Sprinkler System

We don’t do sprinkler work outside of repairing what we accidentally damage with our lawn mowers.  Jason Porter of Choice Irrigation will inspect and program your system for $75.  His telephone number is 972-841-8631.

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Winter Lawn Care

?Bermuda lawns go dormant in North Texas when we get our first frost, which is usually around Thanksgiving.  The grass turns yellow or brown and many home owners think their lawn is “dead”.  However, the roots under the soil are still alive and when the warm weather returns in the spring, the bermuda lawns will green up.  Bermuda lawns are very susceptible to weeds during dormancy.  Germinating weed seeds in a dormant bermuda lawn don’t have as much competition for sunlight and nutrients as they do when the grass is green.  This is why it is of critical importance to get your pre-emergence applications down BEFORE the weeds germinate.  The most important applications we make all year are the applications we make in the fall and winter.  But any time is a good time to start a program of weed control and fertilization.

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