Services
Lawn treatment services in Kansas City
Five services. Each one does something to the soil or the stand of grass.
Which ones your lawn needs depends on the time of year and the shape the turf is in. For most thin fescue lawns around here, the fall answer is aeration and seed. Fertilizer and weed control are timing questions.
In Missouri I offer core aeration, seeding, weed control, fertilization, and leaf cleanup. In Kansas I offer core aeration, seeding, fertilization, and leaf cleanup.
What each one is
Core aeration
A machine pulls plugs of soil out of the ground and drops them on the surface. On the clay under most yards here that is the one job that changes what roots are able to do, and K-State says a lawn taking real traffic wants it twice a year while a quiet one is fine with once. It also puts the full effect at three years running.
Overseeding
Seed is the only way to get more grass plants into a fescue lawn, and there are two ways to put it down at two different prices. Broadcast behind the aerator suits a lawn that is merely thin. Where the ground is actually bare, a slit seeder cuts the seed into the soil instead, because Johnson County Extension says bare patches fill in slower and less evenly with aeration alone.
Weed control
Broadleaf weeds and crabgrass, treated on the weeds' own schedule. Perennials like dandelion and ground ivy spend the fall moving food down into their roots, which is when a spray gets carried down there with it. If I put seed on the lawn in September, the spray waits until the new grass has been cut three times.
Missouri onlyFertilization
Fall and winter fertilizer for cool-season grass. K-State's calendar puts the main application around Labor Day, right behind aeration, and a second one in November, and says that a lawn fertilized once a year should be fertilized in September. Nothing goes down in the summer heat while brown patch is running, which is when Missouri Extension says to keep nitrogen off a fescue lawn.
Leaf cleanup
Fall leaves chopped into the lawn with a mulching mower, a thin layer at a time, and the bagger used afterward for whatever is still lying on top. Michigan State mulched oak and maple leaves into test plots for six seasons without changing the soil pH, and the plots that got maple leaves carried far fewer dandelions, most clearly where no fertilizer went down.
Why the list stops here
Each of these jobs waits on the weather. Aeration wants damp ground, and a broadleaf spray wants a day under 85 degrees with no rain for 24 hours after it. Seed has to go down inside a window a few weeks long. Leaves have to be dry before a mower will chop them. With a short list, I can move a job to the day that suits it.
These five are the core of the year, not the edge of what I do. If your lawn needs something that is not on this page, ask.
Start with the address
Give me a sentence about what is wrong with the lawn. I will tell you what is worth doing this year, and send a written quote.