Weed & Feed Products

 
Hello,

I'm a novice but passionate about getting my lawn looking beautiful.
Following
much research, I think I understand the fundamentals of lawn
care and I am now
trying to source the best products to treat my lawn
through the seasons. I'm
currently using Evergreen Complete (first
time) but I think this is a public
consumer product and definitely not
what a professional would use.

What do the pro's use to periodically weed and feed their lawns and who
vends
these ?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Sled




--
Sled

 Sled wrote:

never buy a product labeled weed and feed.  

 

I'll second that.  The best products may vary from region to region, but the
best product is never a "weed-and-feed."  It's an indiscriminate use of a
pesticide (herbicide) that's unnecessary.  If your lawn is in such bad shape
it needs a weed-and-feed you should consider starting over.

In the south, Lesco produces some high-end fertilizers that include mostly
slow release nitrogen and little or no phosphorus.  A good source of
products and information may be a company that deals in commercial
agriculturre / lawn care products such as Prosource One.  They have a wide
variety of fertilizers of various compositions for special needs and should
be able to advise you - you'll find them in major agricultural areas and
they also service golf courses and the like.  To see what you're up against,
go to
http://prosourceone.com/product_catalog.php?market_id=6&product_type_id=1  
and figure out which of that page of fertilizers is the one you want for
your lawn.

A good first step may be to take a Master Gardener course where you live.
That will get you into the technicalities and biology of soils and
fertilizers.  Here's a test -- if you know the meaning of the word
"adjuvant" and can describe the process you may be able to skip the Master
Gardener program, otherwise . . .

Lawn care is a good example of the 90 / 10 rule.  You can get 90% of the
benefit with 10% of the effort - it's the last 10% that takes 90% of the
effort, and frankly it's not worth it.  You can use that 90% of your free
time a lot better in other ways than in obsessing over your lawn.  If ;you
can afford to spend all of your free time working on the lawn, you can
afford to pay someone else to do it for you --

 
I don't know where you got the idea that Weed and Feed was good, but it is
not.  Get a good fertilizer, many areas have local brands, with slow
release.  Get a spray bottle or pump gallon of Weed B Gone, or other brand
(Bayer) of broadleaf weed killer.  Use it only where you have a weed.  This
way you avoid over application of herbicide.  Only putting it on the weed
you want to kill.  Buy the concentrate of the product to refill the pump
bottle as needed.  You will find that once the weeds are under control, and
your property is maintained, that weed control takes very little time and
chemical.  Do the most with the least chemical.

Later,

Dale P

 
The most effective weed control is to have a healthy, thick, lawn that
blocks out most of the weeds on it's own.   The few that manage to
grow, you can easily and most effectivelyh deal with by using a tank
sprayer that delivers the herbicide directly and very effectively to
the small spots where it's needed.