Next for Your Lawn In May

With a sudden and unexpected heat wave that pulled temperatures as high as the 90s last week, May is shaping up to be a fairly dry and warm month. As a result, most lawns are getting thirsty at this point. If you haven’t already, now is the time to turn on your irrigation systems. We are wrapping up round 2 of our fertilizer and weed control program, and by the end of this month we will be underway on supplementary services such as fungus and grub control treatments. Now is when you may start to see signs of brown patch, so keep an eye on your lawn and contact our team if you see anything that looks unusual. Because of the rise in heat that we’ve had, the crazy growth we saw last month has finally slowed down to a more normal rate. Mow services are still in full swing along with spring mulch and pruning services.

How to Water your Lawn

If you haven’t seen it yet, we recently released a detailed and thorough video that explains everything you need to know about the watering of a fescue lawn in RVA. Fescue thrives when it receives one to one and a half inches of water per week. This is taking rainfall into account as well. A great starting point to base your irrigation system on is to strive for one third to one half of an inch of water every other day, three days a week. If you’re a PPLM mowing client, be sure that none of the days you water are also the day that you’re typically scheduled for service. Remember, it is very important to only water in the early morning, roughly between 5am and 7am. This is early enough that you won’t risk losing water to evaporation, but late enough that the grass blades won’t stay wet too long and risk fungus developing. There are many more pointers and breakdowns like this in the video here, so be sure to check it out and base your watering practices on it.

Mild Winter Consequences

As you know, next for your lawn is the excessively wet weather we had in 2018 was followed by a surprisingly mild winter. Unlike in years past, we didn’t really have any hard, deep, prolonged freezes or winter storms. While it was easy to appreciate the break in the weather at the time, it has set us up for struggles this spring. The unseasonably warm temperatures we’ve had in the last couple of weeks have tipped the scales to bring about a sudden and strong wave of pests and fungus alike. We are seeing aggressive levels of mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks in local lawns, which has us on the watch for signs of grub damage soon to follow. Additionally, we are seeing above average rates of red thread developing as well as new blooms of brown patch that are weeks ahead of when this lawn disease normally begins. While the weather so far this year is very different from last year, it is still going to come with consequences that could impact your lawn. Now is the time to be on the lookout for signs of disease in your lawn, so contact our team if you have any concerns about sudden changes in its color or quality that you’ve observed.

Service Scheduling

During this time of the year, we often receive questions from our clients regarding how services are scheduled. Where our mowing routes are concerned, these weekly services remain on a set schedule. This gives mowing clients the ability to predict which day of the week our crew will visit the property and time their irrigation and other maintenance work accordingly. For fertilizer, we try to avoid scheduling fertilization routes more than a day or two in advance, but we contact you the day before the service to let you know when we will be coming. This is because all of our services are greatly impacted by the weather. None of our crews operate in the rain, and most services are not safe for your property if they are done too soon after a rain event. When we are applying weed control, heat and wind are challenging factors as well. As a result, our schedules require a lot of monitoring and flexibility to keep things efficient and fair while dodging around inclement weather. Anytime that you have questions about the scheduling of your service, please feel free to contact our office for real time information.

Online Referral Giveaway!

Don’t forget, PPLM is proud to offer our clients a $50 credit toward your account for every person you send our way that signs up for a Picture Perfect Program. Additionally, we are hosting a quarterly giveaway for referrals posted to your neighborhood Facebook page! You can also win a $25 gift card and PPLM swag when you post to your neighborhood Facebook page recommending our services. Just email us a screenshot of your post on the page, and we’ll enter you into the drawing. You can enter monthly so long as the posts are different, which means you can be entered up to three times per giveaway! At the end of the year, we’ll have a mega prize for all of the entries together, so be sure to take advantage of this opportunity.