Hey there, hope you are having a great week!

Today’s email is packed with information for all grass types.

We are coming into the seasonal transition time now where spring yields to summer and with that, we have the opportunity to adjust our strategies to match.

Most of what I’m talking about today is further incorporated into my comprehensive and detailed lawn plans for cool season (Kentucky Bluegrass, Rye, Fescue) and warm season (St Augustine, Bermuda, Centipede, Zoysia, Bahia) lawn guides.

These guides provide you step-by-step instructions on what to put on your lawn and when.

If you get through this email and have questions, I can bet they are answered in those guides.

That said, let’s get after it:

Seed Head Panic

Are these seed heads in my lawn a form of alien weed invasion? Should I be concerned?

Many of you, especially a little further north up around the Great Lakes, and over into the far Northeast are now seeing your lawns, “go to seed” and you are concerned.

I talked about this on my podcast this week and gave you some reasons for this flush, as well as told you how to get through it quickly.

The key is to mow them off with malice so the turf can focus its energy on preparing for summer rather than trying to reproduce with sterile seeds.

You can hear that right here (time stamped to the exact spot in the show).

I also made this video many years ago showing what turf-type tall fescue in seed looks like.

Feel free to send that to your friends who may also be concerned about this “invasion.”

Spring Rain Hangover

The other thing that I am hearing a lot of this last week or so is the amount of rain being dropped across most of the country this spring.

I’m not up on the weather forecast in every city in America (I try) but one thing I am sure of is that folks in the Northeast, particularly New Jersey up to Massachusetts have had record rains these last few weeks.

I’m seeing reports of very wet spring conditions across Ohio down into Louisville, KY as well.

Detroit, MI also broke a few rain records over the last few weeks.

I know I’m not covering the entire US here, so fill in your own blanks for the weather in your city… point being, we need to watch for the rain hangover.

I covered this in detail on my podcast and if you have cool season turf, I recommend you click here and listen to this short segment to understand a little better and then keep reading as I talk to my friends here with warm season turf here on the Gulf Coast… 

Because while our weather patterns are very different - the symptoms of the rain hangover are very similar. Sharpen Your Mower Blades Hane!

Being the Lawn Care Nut can be stressful - especially when you want to show the truth about your lawn and all you get are people Tweeting at you “sharpen your mower blades Bruh!”

Do you know what that does to my self esteem?

I’m joking of course because I know my mower blades are sharp. I sharpen every 10-14 days. So then why does my lawn look like this?

That’s a lovebug swarm on there, but look at those shredded tips!

So if I am sharpening my mower blade as often as I claim, then why are these thick St Augustine grass blades shredded so badly like this?

The answer is pretty interesting and it's something we need to be observant of, even with cool season lawns.

Have you ever noticed on the hottest days that sections of your lawn will turn this dark-gray even slightly dark blue-brown?

I’ve been noticing these in my St Augustine over the last 2 weeks or so, especially as our daytime temperatures have risen into the 90s consistently with almost no cloud cover.

Here in Florida we are now coming out of our DRY season and heading into the rainy season - exact opposite of my friends north.

The thing about this time of year is that most of us still have our irrigation systems on a lighter schedule because temperatures in spring are a bit more mild and the humidity is lower.

However, in May, we are transitioning into the summer so the temperatures are really starting to come up, which our St Augustinegrass loves, but with its big fat stolons reaching out long, it does need quite a bit of water to keep its vigor.

In summer, we get rain nearly every day and it’s a hard, pouring rain in the afternoon. That is enough to give St Aug what it needs to keep on pushing through even the hottest months.

But while we're still in May, we have some of that same heat, WITHOUT the rain and the St Aug will start to “check out” in the middle of the day.

This is a sign that first off, you need to adjust your irrigation to compensate until the rains in June come in to help you out but in the meantime, you definitely have to be careful about mowing in the heat of the day!

Cutting crispy grass, as you see here, means that the tips are not going to receive a nice, clean cut no matter how sharp your blade is!

In these cases, it’s best to get water on these areas and wait until the next day to cut - they will start to recover pretty quick.

Good news here is that lawns that are under-irrigated this time of year are not growing too fast anyway, and that’s a whole other consideration when it comes to getting ready for Summer Blackout!

Lastly - another question I often get is “Hey Allyn, will grass burn if you water in the middle of the day?”

I answered that for you in this fun video from my St Pete house a couple years ago - check out that beautiful Bermuda grass!

Disease In Lawns

One thing’s for sure, it’s time to consider lawn disease prevention.

I’ll be performing some applications this weekend on the channel showing once again how to do the Bullet Proof strategy, but this time using products you can find at any store near you.

Be sure to subscribe!

I’ll see YOU in the lawn!

- AL