KEY STEPS TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR SHRUBS AND LAWN

For those who own lawns or want to give the best care to their shrubs, it can be complicated but this post helps you to simplify the process.

Shrubs

You need to ensure that you’re constantly drenching the plants with a sufficient diluted gallonage. In the early spring, apply 2-4 pounds per each 100 sq. ft. of our 5-2-4, in the landscape beds, beneath the shrubs. You can pull the mulch back and spread handfuls as you’re able as it is a very non-burning organic formula.

For the Oct-Nov time frame of each year, the GVH is wonderful (8 pounds per 100 Sq. ft. overtop of a thin layer of mulch is “OK”, but 4 pounds per 100 sq. ft. under the mulch is much better).

With shrubs, your patience is a virtue. You need to follow faithfully the made above. During the fall (as late as possible, before the daytime temp’s stay consistently below 40 degrees F), you can spray an antitranspirant on the skip laurels to protect them from desiccating winter winds, etc.

You should use more of leaf compost than wood mulch. However, if wood mulch is all you can get, then use it sparingly.

Lawn

For your lawn, the GVH is best applied in the Oct-Nov time frame.  The key is the right microbial food substrates applied at the right times of the year; call it a buffet table set with the right foods, for the right guests, at the right seasons of the year.

It is important to emulate the natural processes to have the power of creation behind you.  Microbes are natural chelators. Make them fat & happy, encourage their multiplication, and they will work for you 24/7.  Also, straight humic acid is a “catalyst”; it will usually be MOST PRODUCTIVE when used in combination with other things.

To avoid fungal disease & bare spots, get the right grass for your locale and follow the above advice. You also need to understand that you CAN’T CONTROL NATURE 100% OF THE TIME AS THERE WILL BE PERIODIC FAILURES.

Yes, there is almost always a seed blend that will serve you better than others, but the key is what seed/grass do you have now?

It matters GREATLY when in the “fall” you seed; again. The soil in the area under the tree is likely compacted for a variety of reasons, but it’s likely the roots are semi-close to the soil’s surface, adding to compaction, and the lack of vigorous plant growth.

This will mean a lack of microbes (since far less photosynthate carbohydrate sugar plant root exudates to consume), which will then lead to far less microbial aeration from the lack of 24/7 tunneling around for microbial food substrates.

To have a great turf under the tree, a thin tree is important as greater light availability leads to better plant/turf growth. A better turf growth leads to more photosynthesis, which in turn leads to higher photosynthate carbohydrate sugar production and root sugar exudates.

This provides the perfect situation for FAR HIGHER microbial activity, and a higher microbial activity leads to much higher levels of natural microbial aeration.

In the end, the soil loosens, breaths better, drains better, and then plants grow better in a less restricted/compacted soil, and more populous microbes perform more nutrient chelation, and the whole blasted process gets better!

If you have less light, well, the whole process I just enumerated collapses on itself in a reverse manner from what I described above. Sunlight is critical; your tree is just hogging it all for itself.