Ask Danny | Ep. 1: Improving Your Lawn’s Health

Welcome to the initial episode of Today’s Homeowner’s new podcast, “Ask Danny.”

Every 7 days, I chat with an industry good friend to deal with your dwelling advancement questions. We’ll share pro strategies and functional information to aid you succeed! As well as, there is usually a exclusive or funny story along the way.

Now we are speaking about lawn care and sodding, with Sid Sexton. Sid is the founder of Sexton Lawn & Landscape in Daphne, Ala., and is licensed in turf and ornament spraying, landscape design and style, and placing of landscape vegetation.

About Sid Sexton

As the founder of Sexton Garden & Landscape, Sid is a down-to-earth, honest businessman with a appreciate for lawn treatment, landscape style, and providing the ideal merchandise to his shoppers.

Starting off at age 16, Sid spent his summers functioning for a community landscape firm and the nearby nation club and golf course in his hometown of Muskogee, Okla.

Following earning his bachelor’s degree in enterprise administration with a minor in horticulture, Sid joined the U.S. Coast Guard and was stationed in Hawaii, where by he achieved his long term wife, Jourdan.

He was honorably discharged soon after two decades and started operating as an account supervisor for a landscape corporation. In January 2004, he established Sexton Garden & Landscape.

Sid is accredited in turf and ornament spraying, landscape style and design, and location of landscape vegetation. He is also a Licensed Landscape Qualified and carries on his schooling by way of workshops, on line programs and other occasions several moments all over the year.

Preserve looking through for his guidance on prevalent lawn issues.

Managing Weeds

“We laid sod in our yard a several many years back and it’s held up well right until lately. We’re starting up to notice a ton more weeds than typical. What really should we do?” 

Sid: The greatest weed management is a healthful garden. Grass wants three major points to thrive — daylight, water and nutrients, and in that purchase.

See if the sod is getting enough sunlight. Trim any branches that could be casting way too significantly shadow on to the grass.

Also, imagine about the kind of grass. Some types of grass thrive in a person location and fail in a further. The type of sod could not be shade-tolerant. There is no true shade-loving turf, but there are some that tolerate a certain amount of shade.

Future, think about irrigation. Are you watering too substantially or also minor? The correct stability relies upon on the variety of turf you have.

The previous action really should be fertilization and weed command. If weeds are the challenge and you experience like you have plenty of solar, water and nutrition, call a qualified for a weed control system.

Lawn Aeration

“Should everybody aerate a garden, or is that in a situation when you suspect the floor has gotten more compacted?”

Sid: The reply is dependent on how substantially targeted traffic you have on your garden.

Do you have some mature trees and are all those roots are having bigger and larger and having up additional house beneath the grass. Do you have canine or little ones? Is there a soccer match in the yard each individual weekend? This will bring about compaction.

If this is the situation, you ought to main aerate. If it is a sports turf, you should main aerate twice a yr. 

For regular house owners, as soon as a year, if that, is sufficient. 

And just before you aerate, mark the areas of your sprinkler heads.

Prepping for Sod

“What must you do prior to sodding your lawn?”

Sid: Right before laying sod, consider 5 or six soil samples from the front and backyard.

Label them so you will know what place of your lawn requires soil amendment. Talk to with your local extension workplace to see what cures you should really do.

After your soil is amended and you’re prepared to lay the sod, commence prepping. There’s no will need to eliminate all vegetation, but you do need to have to get rid of the weeds. 

Before laying the sod, crack up the soil with a until. This will make a smooth transition layer of soil that will make it less difficult for the grass roots to consider keep. 

Then, add some organic issue to create a residing soil for your sod to thrive, like Black Cow. (This is an affiliate backlink. If you invest in this solution, we will get paid a modest fee at no extra price to you.)

Sid Sexton’s Mowing Ideas

• Sharpen your lawn mower blade at minimum at the time for each year. A sharp blade will make a wonderful clean cut and will not tear the grass blades.
• Adjust up mowing styles. Do not mow in the exact way every single time each and every 12 months. It aids the grass to grow a unique way and lessens the likelihood of ruts in your property.
• Make positive you know the mowing height for your turf sort. Unique grasses grow finest when at specific heights. For case in point, the advisable top for St. Augustine grass is 3-4 inches, whereas Bermuda grass needs to be slice at an inch and a half. 

Sid’s Come upon with the Elusive Floor Pearl

All through the class of his horticulture scientific tests in university, Sid figured out about an insect known as a floor pearl. Floor pearls live in the soil, feed on turf roots and seem like a pearl, as their name suggests.

Above the a long time, he’s read about ground pearls in seminars and read about them in textbooks, but he experienced under no circumstances noticed one particular in actual daily life. 

“I considered it was the Loch Ness monster — some thing you explained when you couldn’t figure out what was improper with a lawn,” Sid claims.

This adjusted, however, when he purchased a home in 2012. For nine months, he struggled to find the cause of why the grass’ wellness was declining. The respond to grew to become clear when he was digging to plant a tree and pulled out a big wad of soil.

There had been white and pink dots everywhere! Lo and behold, it was the elusive ground pearl.

Now, he sees them just about everywhere!

New episodes of “Ask Danny” fall Fridays — subscribe right here.