Michael Wienecke
Hey, thanks for listening to another episode of The All Seasons Weed and Feed Podcast. Leaves are dropping start to get cold. I know in my backyard, we’ve got a ton of leaves that I’ve got to get up either by raking, mulching or blow my favorite blow in with a leaf blower. So Parker, let’s talk about some of the ways that leaves can be beneficial and not so beneficial to the yard.
Parker Bond
Okay. Thank you very much, Michael. And what I’d like to start off with is the cleaner the turf is the grass, the better off your grass is going to be come springtime, what you want to do is get those leaves off. You want whether by like you said blowing, raking, mulching, if you mulch, though, I would really say do it once and the rest of the time, you want to get them away from that soil. Because the more that you mulch your leaves, the more you’re going to build up a thatch line, which then means products that are put into help your grass or actually just rain or irrigation is not going to be as efficient.
Michael Wienecke
Okay, all right. So as far as some leaves being on the grass is that is there any benefit to that, as far as you know, any protection? Or is it just you want to get all those leaves off,
Parker Bond
you really want to get all the leaves off. And the other point from there too, is have your grass about two and a half or two, two and a half inches tall. That way, it’s also giving a little bit of a canopy to keep the soil a couple of degrees warmer versus what it is above the grass, which then goes into one other point I’d like to make there’s some people that talk about, oh, I want to I want to scalp my grass at the end of the year. Oh no, you don’t want to do that. Now it’s not to say you can’t do it. But again, you’re cutting that canopy down. So more of the soil is exposed. So therefore the root system is going to be more exposed to cooler temperatures.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, so grass is pretty fragile. Summertime, you can burn it up wintertime, you know, you got leaves dropping on it. Some people scalp in the yard, there’s just there’s many ways to kill your grass.
Parker Bond
That’s why the height of the grass is important. Somewhere between two to two and a half inches, you will do really well the soil will do well. And also your root systems will do well.
Michael Wienecke
Perfect. Perfect. Well, let me ask you a question just in your opinion, because I know I personally like to wait till all the leaves drop. If it rains, but after all that leaf drop, you can’t get you know out there and get all those those leaves kind of away from the backyard, the front yard. And it just it rains. We have to worry about a lot of mold building up in that grass as well. Correct.
Parker Bond
That’s an excellent point. Yes, you looking for mold possibility of funguses if we happen to get some increase in temperatures. And then the other thing too, if we mulch the the leaves, and again, building up that Fach that gives us a situation for bugs, such as white grubs, ants, moles, crickets, cicadas, wasps and bees can nest in there. And those are things that we don’t want in our soil one because they’re past and two because they, you know, don’t look good. You know, you have the family out in the yard and all sudden here come a bunch of wasps that have made nests in the ground because of so much thatch. Granted, there are other reasons, but there’s an added scenario that if you eliminate a lot of that, that you won’t have as great a possibility of having those pests in your turf.
Michael Wienecke
Gotcha, gotcha. Well, so it’s, you know, I keep hearing we’re gonna have a just tremendous cold winter. So let’s talk about irrigation. I know that kind of, you know, we don’t do irrigation, but it goes hand in hand with the yard. So as far as winterizing, you know, leaving it leaving it running because you do still have to water your grass. So what’s your recommendation on that?
Parker Bond
My recommendation on that is first as we just finished discussing, is keep the grass is clean as possible. That way when we get rain, it’s going to get into the soil. And yes, our grass is dormant, but it’s still a and bit alive, so that that rain will help the root system and then come spring, it then starts growing. So as long as we’re getting rain, every six weeks or so during the winter, we’re fine, our shrubs are fine. Our, basically our plants are fine unless we get a huge freeze that has a possibility of killing them. But for the most part, we’re good. So as far as irrigation is concerned, you it is best to turn it off, and then get all the water out of the system. Now you can leave it in there, but you’re taking the risk of if we get a couple of deep freezes. And those pipelines freeze and then expand and break, then come springtime and you’re ready to water your yard and you’ve got more spouts than you do spigots, you know then you’re in a situation where it’s time to either change them out or have somebody come change them out for you.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, I’ve personally seen sprinkler lines and I busted sprinkler lines before and it’s not fun to fix it. It’s very costly. And it’s that you know, preventative maintenance. I know we talk about that a lot. So keeping a clean yard, summertime wintertime, just very important. Again, thanks for listening to the All Seasons Weed and Feed Podcast and we’ll see you next time.
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