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

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

Every single week, I chat with an marketplace pal to deal with your residence advancement questions. We’ll share professional tips and simple assistance to assistance you realize success! Additionally, there is constantly a special or funny story together the way.

Right now we are speaking about garden treatment 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 style, and location of landscape vegetation.

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About Sid Sexton

As the founder of Sexton Lawn & Landscape, Sid is a down-to-earth, honest businessman with a enjoy for lawn treatment, landscape layout, and providing the greatest goods to his customers.

Beginning at age 16, Sid put in his summers performing for a regional landscape company and the community nation club and golf training course in his hometown of Muskogee, Okla.

Soon after earning his bachelor’s diploma in business administration with a minimal in horticulture, Sid joined the U.S. Coastline Guard and was stationed in Hawaii, wherever he met his upcoming spouse, Jourdan.

He was honorably discharged soon after two many years and began working as an account manager for a landscape organization. In January 2004, he started Sexton Lawn & Landscape.

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Sid is accredited in turf and ornament spraying, landscape style and design, and placing of landscape crops. He is also a Certified Landscape Expert and carries on his education and learning by workshops, on the net classes and other gatherings several instances in the course of the calendar year.

Preserve reading for his suggestions on frequent lawn difficulties.

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Controlling Weeds

“We laid sod in our yard a number of many years ago and it’s held up well right until lately. We’re starting to recognize a great deal a lot more weeds than standard. What ought to we do?” 

Sid: The most effective weed command is a healthful garden. Grass demands three important things to thrive — daylight, water and nutrition, and in that order.

See if the sod is finding ample sunlight. Trim any branches that could be casting also significantly shadow onto the grass.

Also, think about the style of grass. Some styles of grass thrive in a person area and fall short in an additional. The variety of sod could not be shade-tolerant. There is no actual shade-loving turf, but there are some that tolerate a specified sum of shade.

Upcoming, take into consideration irrigation. Are you watering also significantly or as well small? The ideal stability relies upon on the kind of turf you have.

The very last action need to be fertilization and weed control. If weeds are the challenge and you truly feel like you have plenty of solar, drinking water and vitamins and minerals, make contact with a qualified for a weed management application.

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Garden Aeration

“Should everybody aerate a lawn, or is that in a circumstance when you suspect the ground has gotten far more compacted?”

Sid: The reply is dependent on how a great deal site visitors you have on your garden.

Do you have some experienced trees and are these roots are acquiring larger and larger sized and taking up far more place underneath the grass. Do you have dogs or youngsters? Is there a soccer match in the yard each and every weekend? This will bring about compaction.

If this is the scenario, you should really main aerate. If it’s a sports activities turf, you should really core aerate twice a year. 

For standard homeowners, at the time a yr, if that, is ample. 

And prior to you aerate, mark the destinations of your sprinkler heads.

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Prepping for Sod

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

Sid: Prior to laying sod, choose 5 or 6 soil samples from the front and yard.

Label them so you’ll know what space of your lawn wants soil modification. Talk to with your area extension office to see what solutions you need to do.

Immediately after your soil is amended and you are completely ready to lay the sod, start prepping. There is no need to have to eliminate all vegetation, but you do have to have to get rid of the weeds. 

Before laying the sod, crack up the soil with a till. This will build a gentle changeover layer of soil that will make it less difficult for the grass roots to get hold. 

Then, add some organic make any difference to generate a dwelling soil for your sod to thrive, like Black Cow. (This is an affiliate website link. If you purchase this product, we will gain a little commission at no more cost to you.)

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Sid Sexton’s Mowing Guidelines

• Sharpen your lawn mower blade at minimum after per year. A sharp blade will make a great clean up reduce and will not tear the grass blades.
• Modify up mowing styles. Really don’t mow in the exact path just about every time just about every yr. It helps the grass to increase a different way and lessens the likelihood of ruts in your property.
• Make sure you know the mowing height for your turf style. Diverse grasses develop finest when at specified heights. For example, the advisable top for St. Augustine grass is 3-4 inches, whilst Bermuda grass demands to be reduce at an inch and a 50 percent. 

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Sid’s Encounter with the Elusive Floor Pearl

Throughout the class of his horticulture research in school, Sid learned about an insect known as a floor pearl. Floor pearls are living in the soil, feed on turf roots and look like a pearl, as their title implies.

About the many years, he’s read about ground pearls in seminars and study about them in textbooks, but he experienced by no means witnessed a single in real everyday living. 

“I believed it was the Loch Ness monster — a thing you mentioned when you couldn’t determine out what was improper with a garden,” Sid states.

This improved, nevertheless, when he bought a dwelling in 2012. For 9 months, he struggled to find the induce of why the grass’ overall health was declining. The response grew to become distinct when he was digging to plant a tree and pulled out a significant wad of soil.

There were being white and pink dots almost everywhere! Lo and behold, it was the elusive ground pearl.

Now, he sees them everywhere!

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