My friends, July 4 is nearly upon us. Milorganite is in short supply across much of the country, and you may be one of those caught off guard. You are sitting here, it’s the week before, you’re at work right now, and you know the lawn is not as green as it should be to celebrate the independence of this great nation. What can a Lawn Care Nut do?

Answer: Ringer Lawn Restore.

Cool Season Lawns (KBG, Fescue, Rye)
You know Milo is my #1 fave, but in times like this, we can always count on Ringer. It’s also a good idea to get a shot of potassium in the lawn during summer stress and Ringer delivers strong dosages here with an analysis of 10-0-6.

At 10lbs/1000 you will get a FULL POUND of Nitrogen, and over half pound of Potassium. You know what’s cool about that? Timing.

You will get visible results with Ringer in 3 days time during this kind of heat. In fact, I’ve seen results in as little as 2 days before. The key is to keep the lawn irrigated, go ahead and water in the Ringer to get it deep.

Secondly, the green you get is a very TRUE green color. It’s not blue-green, more, “real green.”

Check out my buddy Chris from Handy Dad TV up in Jersey. He has been working through my cool season lawn plan on his channel and recently applied Ringer to his lawn at my recommendation (it’s in the book too). 

I’d say Chris is ready for Independence Day for sure, check out this color:

Now I realize he says these results are after 2 weeks -- but I’m telling you -- test me on this one… go ahead, I promise you this is not hype: Ringer will bring a visible change in turf color in 3 days. That means that everyone of you has time to get some. But remember, the rate is 10lbs/1000 sq ft. It’s quite heavy, but not as heavy as Milo at 15lbs/1000. There also is the smell of a brewery in the bag which is quite enjoyable, especially during a July 4th party.

First place to look:
“Real” garden centers - they will carry Ringer. Nurseries too.  I rarely see it at Big Box stores but I have seen it at True Value and Ace in the past - be sure to call around - you will find it.  If those don’t work for you, get it on Amazon with free shipping. You still have PLENTY of time here - but you have to act fast.

Let’s calculate some cost just for fun, based on what we see as a cost or Ringer here:
$39.99
25 LB bag
10-0-6 analysis
10LB/1000 sq ft rate.

For those of you who are new here, this means that we want to apply 10lbs of Ringer granules across every 1,000 sq ft of lawn area. It’s important to first measure your lawn to understand how much you will need and how much each bag will cover. 

Each 25 LB bag will cover 2,500 sq ft at a 10lbs/1000 rate.
25 / 10 = 2.5

Each bag costs $39.99 which equates to a cost of $15.99 per 1,000 sq ft.
If you have a 10,000 sq ft lawn - that would be a $159.99

That’s a pretty expensive application for sure - but remember, we are putting this down quite heavy! I want you to get that green pop that I love from this product.

Too much math? No way! It’s important to learn these basic calculations and repetition is the key to learning!

Note: this content is not sponsored by Ringer Lawn Restore. I do it for love.

Warm Season Lawns (St Aug, Bermuda, Zoysia, Centipede, Bahia)
Ringer works just as well for you.  If I didn’t have the fertilizing restrictions I do right now, I’d be throwing down Milo at 5lbs/1000 AND Ringer at 10lbs/1000 getting juiced and jacked for the holiday! I’d probably spray some 0-0-2 Micro Greene on about 5 days before the holiday as well.

Turf types like St Augustine and Bermuda just love good organic nitrogen during summer growth periods. Just be sure to keep things well-irrigated. 

Centipede - you need to NOT thrower down so hard… just do Ringer at 8lbs/1000 … that’s all you need, just look:

Summer Weeds I’m Seeing
Many of you will be on vacation next week I’m sure. The way the holiday falls mid-week, it just makes sense. WIth that, you may want to get out and patrol for summer weeds. Here are two that I’m seeing starting to pop up.

Cool Season Lawns - Crab Grass
I was in Naperville, IL last week and saw crabgrass starting to pop through in lawns. This is actually at my boss’s house. You may remember, we did a reno there a few years back - it’s a good one to watch if you are interested in doing some existing lawn reno this year. My cool season ebook actually starts with a process very similar to this one. Anyway, here is some young crabgrass coming in - right in a heat zone:

If you are seeing crabgrass coming into your Kentucky Bluegrass, rye or turf-type tall fescue lawn, then you will want to get something to attack it post-emergently. We used pre-emergents this year but now it’s too late if you are seeing this. And I promise you, even if you did a perfect application of prodiamine or dithiopyr pre-emergent, you are going to get some breakthrough like you see above.

Your best, cheapest bet to control crabgrass is Quinclorac. This is a professional concentrate of this product that we called “Drive” (brand name) when I worked for TruGreen. You can mix this alone or spike it into your other weed control you already have mixed up (as long as that weed control doesn’t already contain quinclorac).

Some over-the-counter weed killers contain Quinclorac in smaller concentrations and they will work to some extent on small breaks of crabgrass but not as well as this product.

The use rate on that is:
1 tbsp per gallon.

That’s VERY low use rate and that jug will last you YEARS so share with your neighbors too.

The crabgrass will turn red when it’s dead and take a couple mowings to break down and disappear.

Warm Season Lawns - Torpedograss
I have this in my lawn, and it’s destructive. I showed it in this video here a few weeks back. If you have St Augustine grass, there is no non-selective herbicide you can get. You have to do surgery on the areas infested (kill with glyphosate, resod).

However, if you have Bermuda or Zoysia you can use Quinclorac as listed above and it will do a good job on the torpedograss but may take multiple applications. Quinclorac will also kill signalgrass and dollar weed. It’s not really a great primary weed killer, but it’s a good “spike” product when you have specific issues like I am mentioning.

I'll see you in the lawn!

AL