Get a Greener Lawn

 

STEVE: Hi, I just recently moved into a house that was built probably about three months ago. The yard, it was – I guess it was planted because there’s a lot of hay on top where the grass is now finally starting to grow through.

TOM: Right.

STEVE: But it’s not a nice, dark green; it’s not very thick at all. Well, my neighbors living across the street; it was built around the same time and they’ve got a beautiful yard and I want theirs. So how do I get it? (Tom and Leslie chuckle)

TOM: OK. Do you have, you know, sort of a different sun exposure on your yard?

STEVE: No, no. They may have a little bit more shade but really not much. It’s across the board front and back their yard is a nice color and some of it’s exposed completely, which is most of my front yard is exposed completely to the sun.

TOM: Right. Well, and this is a brand new house?

STEVE: Yes.

TOM: First lawn ever?

STEVE: Yes.

TOM: Yeah. Well, you probably need to fertilize it and considering that it’s a brand new lawn, it’s never been done before, you probably, in this case, are going to want to use an extended feed fertilizer that has a phosphorous in it. If your lawn was established we’d tell you to use a phosphorous-free product because the roots would already sort of dig down deep in the soil and grab some phosphorous out of that.

I would head over to Lowe’s and look at the Sta-Green line. It’s made by the Spectrum people and it’s good stuff and I think it’s probably what you’re going to need to get this thing going.

LESLIE: Mm-hmm.

STEVE: OK. Would you recommend any more seeding or just put in a fertilizer?

TOM: Well, they probably have it seeded enough but it would not hurt to seed it again. But follow the instructions for seeding on the fertilizer package because you’ve got to get the order of events correct.

LESLIE: And I have to tell you, my neighbor did the craziest thing that I swear did not think was going to work because it looked like such a disaster for weeks and weeks. But he seeded and then put the largest amount of peat moss I’ve ever seen across the entire front lawn and then like police barricades so that the kids, neighbors, dogs (Tom laughs), no one would go near it and he watered like crazy those first couple of days.

TOM: Yeah.

LESLIE: And now, say fast forward two weeks, that lawn is the most beautiful, green lawn I have ever seen and every time I walk by there I’m like, “Man, Kevin, I thought you were nutty.” But it worked fantastically. So sometimes it takes a little bit of figuring out what the soil composition is. Like Tom said, because it’s a new lawn, you definitely want to add some phosphorous.

STEVE: Gotcha. OK. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Steve. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.