Spring Lawn Care Tips

Spring Lawn Care Tips

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, it's Michael Blaze. Welcometo your Home three sixty, the show
where we talk about everything that hasto do with your home. Your Home
three sixty is brought to you bypool Works, exclusive Low Country dealer of
the Little Pool line of pools.The Little Pools are really cool, really
strong, lightweight, well engineered andgood looking swimming pool that you can use

(00:23):
above ground or below ground. Allyou need are some pavers or a cement
pad and you can have the Littlepool up and going in a lot of
cases the day that it arrives atyour home. Check out the Little Pool
line of pools at Mypoolworks dot com. It's springtime and if you want a
pool for this summer, you betteract now and get on the list.

(00:43):
You know a lot of times ifyou wait till later in the season,
these pool contractors don't have time tofit you in. So get on the
list now, and if you actnow, you can save one thousand dollars
off your purchase. Just tell themMichael Blaze sent you and save a grand
Go to Mypoolworks dot com and checkout their full line of the Little Pool
line of swimming pools. Speaking ofspraying, things are starting to green up

(01:03):
out there, including the weeds inyour lawn, and here comes all the
insects, and here comes everything elsethat attacks your nice green lawn. Today,
we're going to talk about that withmy guests in the studio with me
today, Shelton and Catherine Culpepper.They are local owners and operators of lawn
Doctor here in Charleston. Lawn Doctorsspecializes in custom lawn programs for healthy,
green weed and insect free lawns.Lawn Doctor's been around for a long time.

(01:29):
Welcome, thank you, thank youfor having us, Thank you absolutely,
And how long have you guys havebeen at it for? You said,
this is your twenty fifth year.Yeah, we started. I've been
in long Hair my whole life,but I started with lawn Doctor October of
ninety eight, and so this isour officially our twenty fifth year. And
then lawn Doctor's been around for thirtyfive years in Charleston, right correct.

(01:53):
There was two owners prior to meof the local franchise. I think it
started in nineteen eighty eight. Sothat's been a long time of providing great
service for the Charleston area. AndLord knows we need it because anybody that
has a lawn knows how hard itis to keep a green, healthy lawn.
It's like, you know, it'sa mixture of the environment and your

(02:19):
soil and what you put into itand what the lawn is to begin with.
And we were having this conversation offof the air, in your opinion,
what is the best type of grass? You know, we have Saint
Augustine around here, centipede, zoisea, So there's several different choices. If
you were to pick your favorite,which one would you say would be the
best as far as all around maintenanceand health goes. My favorite is Zoijia.

(02:44):
And there's several types of zoysias thatgrew well here in Charleston. But
the zoysa's are a good combination ofdrought tolerance and shade tolerance and they do
well in our areas. The oldstandby was on Saint Augustine for so long.
It's a great turf, but itdoes have a few of a few

(03:04):
problems of diseases and bugs that kindof pick on that one species. But
Zoa's just kind of the way togo. Now, what's the number one
problem you see people having with theirlawns? Is it weeds? Is it
insects. Is it lack of watering. Well, that's a big, big
question, big topic. I guessit would depend on you know, what
area they're in and what kind oflawn they have and all of those things.

(03:27):
Right, Yeah, it's Charleston's unique. It's you know, coastal lawns
actually on the beach right next tothe beach, and then thirty miles inland
lawns that are on heavy clay,and say a Month's Corner or Summerville area
and everything in between. So everybodyfaces different struggles and different problems in the
lawn. It could be one neighbormight be just too shady, one neighbor

(03:51):
might be too dry, it's sandysoil, it could be lots of different
things causes us to have trouble growingground in this area. Well, let's
dive into some specifics. One ofthe problems that I've encountered lately is,
you know, a groundhog or possiblya gopher, whatever it is, it's

(04:13):
leaving tunnels and you know, allover the lawn, and then of course
that gets all muddy and the lawnsunhealthy where those tunnels are. You know,
what's the best way to treat thatnow I've heard in the past that
it's to get rid of their foodsource. Is that right? So you
know, we don't do mole control, but specifically on moles, they're eighty

(04:35):
five percent of their diet is anearthworm. Earthworms considered a beneficial insect and
there's not many insecticides that treat forearthworms or that control earthworms because they're considered
beneficial and they can tunnel up toone hundred feet of new tunnel a day,
So you can go after their food, you can treat them, you

(04:56):
can put out repellents, and youcan have some success with that. But
at the end of the day,you could do everything right, control or
repel some of the moles in yourlawn and still have some tunnel over from
a vacant lot or a neighbor that'snot treating, or just the highway right
away area, and you can stillhave moles that reinfest in the lawn.

(05:16):
So so the answer there is tooyou're going to have to have the animal
removed if you want to, youknow, if you want to have total
control over that situation and have ahealthy want in that manner. As far
as we're on the subject of things, that attack your lawn, living animals

(05:38):
and insects. How about fire ants, Yes, unfortunately, we have fire
ants in our area. They're prettypretty common here. We do pretty good
or on fire ant control, andyou know they can be harmful to pets
and kids or people that you knowcome in contact with them. Some people
are allergic to them. But weoffer a fire ant control that we stand

(06:00):
behind and give you one year guaranteeon it. And fire ants are kind
of the same way as you weredescribing earlier, where they can have colonies
that go for a long distance,and so you can treat yours, but
if everybody around you does not treat, then you're going to have a recurring
problem. So you have to treatthose fire ants on a regular basis,

(06:21):
don't you correct. So some biologyof fire ants is their colony can be
up to six feet deep, andqueens can fly and they're fairly mobile.
So if you treat just the anthill that you're looking at, just the
colony or the ant hill that you'relooking at, there could be another colony

(06:42):
six feet away or one hundred feetaway, or somewhere else in the lawn
that you don't know is there.You control all the ants in that one
ant hell possibly, and then aftera rain or a month or two later,
you see some pop up over andyou're like, well, I didn't
kill them, they just moved overthere. But the truth is there's probably
a colony there. Most likely acolony there, it just wasn't on the
surface. And so that's why it'simportant to treat the entire yard. Use

(07:03):
the right products. And if youuse the right products like our service,
then it kind of puts a blanketover the yard, if you will.
It treats the entire lawn. Soif there's a if there's a population in
a flower bed or somewhere else inthe lawn, when they come in contact
with the area that we've treated,they will be controlled. Even if it's
a month later or two months later. Our product will last. We guarantee

(07:27):
it for a year. And allthe products that you use to treat lawns
are human and pet friendly. Correct. Yes, we're pretty heavily regulated now
compared to days of the past.Clemson's who regulates us in South Carolina.
So everything we use is perfectly safe. You could walk on it, you
know, go out in the lawn, mow the lawn, play in the

(07:49):
lawn, do whatever. As soonas we leave, we ask that you
let it dry. But after thatit's perfectly safe to go in the lawn.
Now, let's talk about weed control. Another thing is and I don't
even know the names of a lotof these weeds. I have a certain
problem in mind that's recurring where Iget these prickly vine type things that keep

(08:11):
popping up and can't seem to killthose. So do you know what I'm
describing prickly weed in our area ismost likely a sand spur or either a
lawn burr weed. I don't knowif they're viney necessarily, but I would
just throw in there that in SouthCarolina, we are we have one hundred

(08:33):
degree weather, and we have twentydegree weather, and it can be warm
in the winter and or you know, it could be eighty in February or
twenty in February, sandy soil,fifty plus inches of rain. So we
are just in a part of thecountry where you're going to have or potential
to have a lot of weeds,and all different types of weeds, like
you just mentioned the prickly count orit's some kind of sticker on it.

(08:54):
So We're just going to have alot of weeds in our area. It
just is what it is. Ithink think we do pretty good. I
think we do better than we've everdone. We continue to change our turf
program each year as recommendations come outand technology changes and new herbicides and things
come out. We stay on topof that and offer them the best that
we can find. But one hundredpercent we control is probably not realistic,

(09:18):
but we certainly can. Can youcontrol most of them? You know,
throughout the year? Yeah? Andyou know, at the end of the
day, weeds are simply plants thatyou don't want there, right correct,
that's uh uh. Sometimes it isoverlooked by a lot of homeowners or maybe
misunderstood that you're trying to take aweed out of a grass. You're trying

(09:39):
to take sometimes a grassy weed outof a grass and so. And we
have four different turf types here,and I just mentioned all the different types
of weeds that we can have here. So it's not as easy to do
here as it is in other partsof the country because we have different turf
types and so many types of weeds. But most of the time I can
only think of one or two wethat are I would consider not controllable in

(10:03):
our area. It might get tricky, might get more tough to do,
but there's pretty much a herbicide forany weed that you have out there,
except for a few. Yeah,Now, what about like a mold and
mildew on the lawn, Catherine,you were mentioning where you've had a birthday
party for your daughter and it causeda problem in the lawn. Do you
have a solution for those type problems? Well, let me I'll let her

(10:26):
talk about the birthday and just sayit. But that was more of a
culture issue, But we do ourlawns are prone to People call it mold
or different things, but it's actuallya categorized as a turf disease. But
it's a fungus that grows either onthe roots or on the blades of the
grass. And there are many typesof disease. There are some that are

(10:46):
more common, such as brown patrick, gray leaf spot, but we have
lots of diseases here that affect everyturf type that we have, all four
Bermuda, Zosia, Saint Augustine,or centipede. Some are airborne, some
are soil born. As you know, we have lots of humidity and lots
of rain. So we just havethe climate and the conditions here where we

(11:07):
have to combat lots of turf diseasesor funguses on our turf. Catherine tell
us about the experience you had withthe birthday. Okay, So my daughter
for her fifth birthday party, wehad a being that her birthdays in July.
We had to do something with waterinvolved to keep us cool. So

(11:31):
we rented a big water slide andit covered most of our backyard and it
was in the backyard for about eighthours and when they came the company came
to take it down. The nextday, I woke up and saw the
big brown square in our backyard andI panicked and said that that was not

(11:56):
a good idea that we had rentedthis water slide because our grass is now
dead. But that that wasn't thecase. Shelton reassured me what was going
on, and it did. Itcame back fine. So what was going
on there is pretty common where peoplewill park a vehicle on the lawn or
I've seen it where after a stormyou clean up and you have fifty trash

(12:18):
bags out front full of limbs andleaves or in this case a waterslide that
was probably i don't know, twentyby forty footprint. That was a big
blow up deal, and it wasone hundred degrees that day and it completely
covered the grass and covered the sunlightfrom the grass for all day. But

(12:39):
any of those situations, it cancause the grass to struggle. Ninety nine
percent of the time, it'll comeback after something like that. Now,
if the leaves and the bags,like after a hurricanes, sit around for
a month because the town's recovering fromall the litter pick up, that might
cause the plants to actually die orgrass to actually die. But most of
the time it's superficial and temporary.If there was a car part there for

(13:01):
a few days, or a boator in this case, a water slide,
and sometimes you can This is afunny story that Catherine had told about
loving your lawn to death. AndCatherine has said, your father used lawne
doctor but decided to that it neededa little extra help. Is that that?

(13:22):
Yes, So he lives well,he lived in the Hilton Head area
and the owner of the hilton headlawnDoctor would call and say, can you
talk to your dad? He's doingsome extra fertilizing in between our services,
and he's loving it more than heneeds to be at this point. So
yes, that there's a reason whyyou hire us because we have it's a

(13:46):
program, and we study it dailyand we know what rates to put out
and when to put it out.And you know, I tell people we're
one spoken the wheel. We're goingto do our part. But you do
have to do your part too.You got to cut it, and you
got to keep the leaves off ofit, and you've got to water.

(14:09):
It's pretty dry here in the summersometimes, so you got to water,
and you've got to trim, trimyour grass, cut it, trim your
trees. I'd like to back upand touch on the love in your lawn
too much because I've overused this analogyfor twenty five years. But if you
go to the doctor and the doctorsays, hey, take take three ibuprofen

(14:31):
and the panel go away or whatever, If you take three, you'll be
fine. If you took the wholebottle, you'd probably die. And what
I'm trying to say is in longcare, if you use the right amount
of fertilization, or if you usethe right herbicide or the right rate of
herbicide or even some insecticides, youshould and we'll get the results that you're
looking for. But if you justdecide, hey, it's not as green

(14:54):
as I want to be, letme put out the whole bag, or
let me put out two bags whenit costs for one bag, or just
grow overdo it, whether you're usingherbicides or fertilization or whatever. In those
cases that it can become toxic andkill to grass. And that's what was
happening with her father. He wantedit to be greener than it should have
been or could have been, orhe wanted a different result, or whatever

(15:16):
the case may be. And ifyou overdo it, you can cause problems
with the grass more than you canhelp it. Sure, and you guys,
you know, if somebody's having aproblem with their lawn, you come
out and you assess it, andyou create a custom approach to each problem
each lawn and then set up aprogram that fits not only the individual needs

(15:37):
of that homeowner or that lawn owner, but also you know, a program
that will fit their budget right.Correct, So we have a turf program
that covers the basics of all lawns. Every lawn needs, some fertilization needs,
your basic pre emergent and spring andfall. We control throughout the year,

(15:58):
and a couple of applicants of insecticidethroughout the year. Of course,
you got a water, you gotto mow, trimme trees and the other
things. But in our case,when we get to your lawn, we
analyze what you get, what youhave, what we're working with, is
it full sun, full shade onthe beach, centipede, Saint Augustine's zoysia,
whatever, We measure a bunch ofmetrics, and then we can customize

(16:22):
it two year lawn, meaning wewill pull a soil sample, send it
off to a lab. They'll recommendus how to get your soul UH in
the right condition or the best condition, and what steps that will take.
Will tell you what they are.You can do them or you can hire
us to do them. And thenwe'll do the turf program that we've put
together over the years. And thenthroughout the year, when we come which

(16:42):
is roughly every six weeks give ortake, we analyze what we see.
We leave you notes, We willsend you emails, text We will communicate
with you the problems that we see, like disease that's popped up since we
were there last time, or maybesome insects that's seasonal insects like us odd
well worm or a grub or whateverwe're seeing while we're there. We'll leave

(17:03):
you notes, we'll treat it ifwe can. We'll you know, leave
you notes or contact you about whatwe would recommend at that time. And
so we customize it to what what'sgoing on in your lawn, you know,
as the year goes on blaze.I want to say, we have
Saint Augustine in our front yard andthen we have zoisia in the back.

(17:26):
And there's a reason because sometimes myyard is like the guinea pig. We
do little experiments on our yard sometimes, but in our front yard, I
love the Saint Augustine, but it'svery susceptible to fungus and we I mean
every thirty days, it's sort oflike clockwork. If you don't keep it

(17:48):
treated with the fungicide, we're eithergoing to have what you call gray leaf
spot and it's like little looks likechicken pox on each blade, or sometimes
we do get the brown patch,which is the circular like you I think
you were talking about earlier when youwere talking about your yard. But anyway,

(18:11):
so it's interesting to see the differencebetween the front yard and the backyard
just with the two types of grassgrasses that we have. And then if
somebody is in the same boat wherethey have two different type of types of
grasses, you can set up acustom program to help them too, right.
Yeah, So a lot of thingswe do are perfectly safe and recommended

(18:33):
on all the turf types. Buton occasion there's things that you would do
different to us in Augustine than youwould do it to a centipede. So
that's one of the things we dowhen we come out is you know,
make a note of the turf typesthat you have, either one or more
than one, and then we canadjust our program as we go. I
like to back up and touch uptouch on the turf fungness or disease that

(18:57):
Catherine was just referring to. Turfdisease or turf fungus is most of them.
I think all of them are soilborn. They're airborne and soilborn,
meaning they're in the soil and thedust and it can be moved, you
know, on lawnmowers, on petfeed, on your feet, water running
across the lawn can move it fromyour lawn to the neighbor's yard or across

(19:18):
your lawn. But the point I'mtrying to make is, in the turf
disease world, even the best fungicidesout there only going to control turf disease
for up to thirty days. Andwhat she was explaining was that we treat
our lawn on roughly a thirty toforty day rotation because we have it,
we have Saint Augustine. It's prettyshady in parts of our front yard and

(19:41):
if we don't, we can't justtreat it once in the spring and call
it good for the rest of theyear. It's something you kind of have
to stay on top of it.It's a maintenance program. And so what
she was saying, and what Iwanted to reach back and say was if
you identify that you have turf diseaseor or a prone to turf disease problems

(20:03):
in your lawn, we have fungicideprograms that we can put you on or
put your lawn on to get onea year, two a year, three
a year, however many it takesfor your lawn, depending on shade,
your watering habits to your turf type, all the different things. Some lawns
are just low here and hold waterafter a rain. Some lawns are more
high and dryer on a hill orsandy, and so anyway, we can

(20:27):
customize in that particular case your fungicidedapplications based on your need and try to
be proactive with it. So youcan either tell us the history or we'll
recognize and create a history as you'reour customer and say, hey, three
a year's great for your lawn,or four years great for your lawn.
But we can customize it to whatyou need based on your local conditions to

(20:48):
your lawn. The environment is sodiverse here as you mentioned. You know,
because you have salt air along theocean and then you have inland,
the temperatures tend to be a littlehotter in the soil composition and be clay
or something different than the sandy soilthat you find at the beach. So
it's important that in a great service, I think that you customize a plan

(21:11):
for everybody. And as you mentioned, all of your products that you use
our kid in pet friendly, soyou don't have to worry about any of
that. If you're concerned about,you know, the effects on your health
of your children, or your pet, or yourself for that matter. You
had mentioned that you have a specialfor first time customers going on. Can

(21:33):
you tell us about that please?Sure? So, what our offer is,
it's half off your first service.If you've never been our customer or
are signing back up on our program, We'll offer you half off, no
matter the size of the loan,and so we'll come out do a long
evaluation or we can do that overto phone, and then your first service,

(21:56):
whether it's fifty dollars or one hundreddollars or whatever, we'll I offer
you half off to come and joinour get on our turf program and let
us maintain your lawn most of thetime. If you're really serious about taking
care of all the problems in yourlawn and you want a nice, green,
healthy lawn, or the best lineyou can you can get under your
circumstances. Anyway, you know whatkind of program does that look like?

(22:18):
You said usually around every six weeksor so. Yeah, we do eight
services for the year. We startin January and go through December. It's
a year round here because of ourclimate, and roughly every six weeks.
Sometimes we make it behind due torain or storm in the fall, but
roughly ever six weeks we come outdo what's needed at that time of year.

(22:41):
Things change as the weather changes andthe needs of your launch changed throughout
the year, but we'll do what'sneeded at that time of year. And
it's an eight step program. Andlike I say, if you sign up
on our program and you know,give us a year to work with it,
then we'll give you half off thefirst application. Well, that's great.
And if somebody's having a problem withtheir lawn or multiple problems, and

(23:04):
I know this might be a littlehard to define because you don't know what
the specific problem is, but thisis not like an instant fix when you
start doing lawn treatment, right,it takes a little while because you have
to be measured in your approach.It takes a little while to repair a
problem lawn, doesn't it correct.We asked that you give us at least

(23:25):
a year. It's not an overnightfix. Can we kill a few weeds
and the weeds be gone in afew weeks? Sure? Can we take
care of fire ant or a grub, or a mold cricket or some other
insect in the lawn and have allof them or most of them going in
a few days. Sure we can. But when it comes to maintaining your

(23:47):
lawn and trying to get your lawnin the best condition that it can be,
that just doesn't happen overnight. Ittakes time, and a lot of
the problems that we have in ourarea cur every year. In other words,
in the springtime, like coming uphere in March and April, our
winter annual weeds are going to bedying out as it warms up, and
our summer annuals are going to begerminating and coming up. And that's going

(24:11):
to happen every spring. And inthe fall, the reverse of that,
your summer annuals, your crabgrasses andthings are going to die out with the
weather. Your winter annuals are goingto start to pop like clover and poanna
and and all the winter annuals willstart to grow as it cools off.
And so every fall you need topre merge. That's just a standard.
It's a thing that has to happenevery year to get the best results for
your lawn. And so that's that'show our program is. But that's that's

(24:37):
why you need to take the approachor consider the approach of you know,
doing this every year all year versusjust hey, let me get two or
three services and stop. You're notgoing to get as you know, you
probably won't be as happy as youcould be, or you might be let
down with your expectations. Sure well, that makes sense. So again,
you have a special for first timecustomers half off your first treatment. And

(25:02):
if you want somebody to come outand create a custom plan for your lawn
and get a price quote, howdo they reach out to you? So
you can call it one eight hundredfour lawn Doctor. That's easy to do,
and you can contact our local officethat of way. Our local number
is eight four three eight seven threefive seven one one. Our website is

(25:22):
lawndoctor dot com. And so ifyou reach out one of those ways,
we'll will most likely answer the phoneor we'll get back with you as quick
as possible. And well, ifyou would like, we could set up
a consultation. Some things we canjust do over the phone and we can
get your starter right away, orif you prefer, we'd be glad to
come out and meet with you.That number, again's one eight hundred four

(25:44):
lawn Doctor, or you can goto Lawndoctor dot com. Shelton and Catherine
Culpepper local owners and operators of lawnDoctor here in Charleston. Thanks for the
information and good to see you today. Thank you, thank you. I'm
just about out of time. Thanksfor listening to your home three six Today
the show where we talk about everythingthat has to do with your home,
brought to you by pool Works,the Low Country's exclusive dealer of the Little

(26:07):
Pool line of pools. The LittlePool is a strong, good looking above
ground pool. Now you can useit below ground too. You can use
it as an in ground pool,but it's strong enough to just set on
some papers or on a slab ofcement, connect a deck to it and
you're good to go. You caneven be swimming on the same day.
It's delivered in a lot of cases. Go to Mypoolworks dot com Mypoolworks dot

(26:32):
com and check out the Little Poolline of pools. And right now,
if you place your order telling MichaelBlaze sent you, they'll give you one
thousand dollars off. Coming up nextweek, we'll be talking about home prices
and affordability issues. I read anarticle just the other day saying that in
order to buy an average price home, which I assume is a median price,

(26:55):
I didn't see their methodology and howthey arrived at those numbers, And
well, I don't have time toget in and explain the difference between you
probably know already between an average priceand a median price. But in order
to buy an average price home today, you need fifty thousand dollars more income
than you needed in the year twentytwenty to buy the same average house.

(27:18):
Not the same house necessarily, butjust what the average cost of a house
is today versus twenty twenty. Intoday's world, you need fifty grand more
of income. And there's not alot of people that I know of that
are making fifty thousand dollars more thisyear than they made in twenty twenty.
So that points out the affordability issuefacing home buyers in the real estate market

(27:41):
right now. So I have togo make some more money. I'm sure
you have to do the same.Enjoy the rest of your weekend, stay
safe. I'll talk to you againMonday morning.