August is a good time to start a new lawn, improve a poor one, or encourage a good one, and transplant or plant evergreens and certain important perennials.
In many respects, this is the best time of year to start a new lawn. The soil is warm, the weather is settled, and perhaps most important, there is little or no weed competition.
The days are growing shorter rather than longer; the nights are becoming cooler.
Dews and rains and bright days provide favorable conditions for seed germination and grass growth.
No one should start a new lawn without studying a bulletin or book on lawn making. Nearly every state agricultural experiment station publishes one.
Know the details of construction, grading and cultivating, soils and seedbed preparation, methods and rates of applying seed, and recommended grass varieties for your area.
New Lawn Life
A poor lawn can be rejuvenated by using a lawn weed killer in early August, then seeding and feeding during the latter part of the month or early September.
Allow several weeks between the application of chemical weed killers and re-seeding.
Seeding and feeding must be done no later than the middle of September if the best results are to be obtained. Grass started too late and will be much more subject to winter injury.
Fertilizing
A good lawn will remain good only if given proper care, including fertilizing in late summer, preferably in August.
Turf research by the University of Minnesota indicates a good rate to apply lawn fertilizer now is two pounds of actual nitrogen per 1000 square feet.
This amount can be obtained by dividing the first number in a complete analysis (nitrogen, phosphorus, potash) fertilizer formula into 100 and multiplying the amount by two.
Transplant Evergreens Now
Evergreens have now matured and hardened the new growth made in spring. Top growth is completed for the season, and except for new root growth, the plant is in a state of semi-quiescence.
Transplanting can be done at a minimum of disturbance or risk.
Results have proved that evergreens transplant as safely in August as they do in spring (the most popular transplanting time here), and transplanting now should be more widely practiced.
Be alert for red spider mites and destroy them before they can damage evergreens, roses, and other ornamentals.
Bleeding Heart Foliage
Bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) foliage is yellowing, and the plant is entering its period of rest.
This is a good time to dig, transplant, or divide it to obtain new plants. This also is true of lily-of-the-valley.
Other perennials that flowered in spring or early summer can be divided if necessary or new plants obtained for next year’s garden.
The bleeding heart, like peonies, does not need to be divided. Plants live for many years without becoming too crowded.
Elegant Madonna Lily
The elegant Madonna lily takes a short summer rest after it flowers in June. During its resting period, the plant can be moved, or an old plant may be divided.
New bulbs are on the market in August; they should be planted soon. The Madonna lily produces a crown of leaves in late summer and fall.
These leaves are important to the plant’s future and its flowering next year. They remain green in winter and must be protected in the North.
Feezing Injuries
This is done by placing some dry leaves or hay under the foliage and a little on top, then placing over them, upside down, a half-bushel basket.
This is done at the end of the season before freezing weather injures the lily foliage. Madonna lily bulbs, unlike most other lily varieties, are planted shallow.
There should be only a couple of inches of soil above the bulb. They should be in well-drained soil in a slightly raised position so that surface water will have no chance to stand over the plant.
44659 by A Phillips