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The following management practices will help you care for your lawn throughout the year. Location, terrain, soil type and condition, age of the lawn, previous lawn care, and other factors affect turf performance, so adjust these management practices and dates to suit your particular lawn.
This factsheet provides instructions on how to properly care for tall fescue grass year round. It includes recommendations for mowing, fertilization, watering, pest control, and renovation.
This comprehensive guide offers information on different grasses for North Carolina lawns, as well as how to establish, care for, maintain, and renovate a new lawn.
This lawns chapter from the Extension Gardener Handbook reviews installation and care of turfgrass as well as management strategies for turfgrass problems. This chapter also reviews options for turfgrass alternatives.
This calendar provides detailed information for the proper care of centipedegrass.
This publication for homeowners and landscapers describes how to mow, fertilize, irrigate, and control weeds in a zoysiagrass lawn.
Turfgrass, trees, and shrubs are desired in most landscapes because they are attractive and useful. Unfortunately, growing turfgrasses in the presence of trees and shrubs can be a formidable task because each plant group competes with the other for the light, water, and nutrients that are essential for survival and growth. Even so, homeowners can take steps to improve the performance of a lawn growing in shade.
Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum) Identification and Management: Brief Description: Japanese stiltgrass (also known as annual jewgrass, bamboograss flexible sesagrass, Japanese grass, Mary’s grass, microstegium, Nepal microstegium, or Vietnamese grass) is a summer annual commonly found in shady, moist areas, and is spreading rapidly in woodlands as well as shaded landscapes and low maintenance turf throughout the southeastern U.S., Mid-Atlantic States and north to New England. Japanese stiltgrass germinates in early spring, several weeks before crabgrass, yet flowers and seeds much later, from mid-September through October. It has broader, shorter leaves than most other annual grasses; somewhat resembling broadleaf signalgrass or spreading dayflower. After frost, the foliage and wiry stems turn a distinctive light tan in color and persist through the winter. Vegetative identification characteristics include: rolled vernation, a very short membranous ligule, and leaf blades that are shorter and broader than most other grasses.
This calendar contains suggestions designed to help in the care and maintenance of St. Augustinegrass throughout the year. It includes recommendations for mowing, fertilization, watering, pest control, and renovation.
This factsheet offers information on the top-performing tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass, and fine fescue turf cultivars in North Carolina.
This calendar offers suggestions regarding management practices for all-season care of a bermudagrass athletic field.
Recommended maintenance practices for a lawn that consists of a blend of tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass are the same as those for a tall fescue lawn. The following management practices will help you care for your lawn throughout the year.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of carpetgrass.
This publication covers the different types of bermudagrass, uses of bermudagrasses, planting methods and the grasses' pests and diseases.
Recommended maintenance practices for a lawn that consists of a blend of tall fescue, hard (fine) fescue, and Kentucky bluegrass are the same as those for a tall fescue lawn. The following management practices will help you care for your lawn throughout the year.
Water is an essential component for plant growth. In turfgrasses it comprises 75 to 90 percent of the fresh weight of the plant, and irrigation is a key cultural practice in turfgrass management. Only 1 percent of the water absorbed is utilized for metabolic activity. By considering the factors that contribute to water loss, turfgrass managers can devise effective irrigation plans for specific sites.
A guide to maintaining quality turf on athletic fields, including recommendations for establishing and caring for new fields, maintaining established fields, and managing pests.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of Bermudagrass and addresses how to control it as a weed.
This pesticide factsheet covers the use and characteristics of the postemergent herbicide Acclaim Extra (fenoxaprop-p).
This publication offers strategies for maintaining green turf during the winter using turf colorants. It discusses considerations for using colorants, different product types for specific uses, application rates and methods, and cost to help you plan winter turf maintenance.
The purposes of this factsheet are to identify several major pollutants that often originate in lawns and gardens, to describe the problems they may cause, and to outline some things that can be done to minimize their adverse effects on water quality. This information should benefit home gardeners, landscape developers, contract lawn care specialists, athletic field managers and others who manage soil to grow plants for food, pleasure, or profit.
This guide is designed to help identify the most troublesome diseases associated with cool-season turfgrasses. This includes such grasses as tall fescue, fine fescue (chewings, creeping red), Kentucky bluegrass, and perennial ryegrass. A description of the disease symptoms, a list of specific management practices that can be used to prevent or reduce turfgrass injury by disease and a chart to indicate when the disease is most likely to occur are presented.
This pesticide factsheet covers the use and characteristics of the preemergence herbicide Barricade, Prodiamine or Regalkade G (prodiamine).
Infestations of moss in turf are associated with unfavorable conditions for growing healthy, dense turf. This publication offers control options.
This factsheet offers information on the top performing tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass turf cultivars in North Carolina.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of bahiagrass and addresses how to control it as a weed.
This publication answers common questions dog owners may have about lawn care. Topics include what kinds of grasses to use in high traffic areas; how to deal with damage to lawns caused by dogs; dogs' exposure to pesticides; and why dogs occasionally eat turfgrass.
This publication discusses the practice of fraise mowing to remove thatch from Bermudagrass. It covers considerations for turfgrass managers, such as costs and debris, and explores specific uses, effects on aesthetics and soil physical properties, and recovery rate.
This pesticide factsheet covers the use and characteristics of the herbicide Dismiss (sulfentrazone).
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of nematodes in turfgrasses.
Lawns are ecosystems that impact surface and groundwater systems. The grasses found in lawns clean the environment by absorbing gaseous pollutants and intercepting pesticides, fertilizers, dust, and sediment. Irrigation water properly applied to lawns remains on site to recharge water supplies. In addition, grasses release oxygen and reduce glare, noise, and summer temperatures. Proper management practices need to be developed and followed to protect this environment. The purpose of this publication is to provide you with management strategies to preserve and protect water resources.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of fall armyworms and addresses how to control them as an insect.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of take-all root rot in turf.
This factsheet provides instructions on how to properly care for carpetgrass year round. It also includes information on fertilization and integrated pest management.
Maintenance contracts for turfgrass areas should be written to provide security for all parties involved. The person or company receiving services (the contractor) should be aware of everything it has agreed to and therefore is required to do. This publication provides basic guidelines on how to write a good contract regarding turfgrass maintenance.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of centipedegrass.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of goosegrass.
This factsheet provides information on how to keep a lawn healthy and attractive and how to protect the environment by reducing runoff and trapping pollutants. Fertilizer facts and rates, a mowing guide, and watering recommendations are included.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of fire ants and addresses how to control them as an insect in turf.
Although groundwater and surface waters are rarely polluted by turfgrass pesticides, turf managers should consider the potential for environmental contamination when choosing a pesticide.
This guide is designed to help turf managers identify the major turfgrass pests found in North Carolina and better understand their life cycles, symptoms, and biology.
This question and answer worksheet will help homeowners focus on potential problems with drinking water or other water resources that may be caused by improper lawn or garden care. Use and storage of fertilizers and pesticides, watering plants, landscape design and soil erosion are discussed.
This publication will help you choose the correct type of lawn maintenance service for your home or business.
This poster-sized landscape management calendar is a guide to keeping your landscape healthy with sound management practices. It discusses proper establishment and maintenance practices as well as monitoring and targeted treatment of pests.
Immediately after a flood, most farmers, nursery crops producers and grounds maintenance staff have much more urgent matters to worry about than weeds. But, eventually the questions arise: Has my preemergence herbicide washed away? How do I know? Should I re-treat? What’s going to happen now? Unfortunately there is no way to provide definitive answers to these questions. But this publication offers some tips and suggestions that will help you plan a response.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of buffalograss.
This factsheet summarizes the characteristics of leaf and sheath spot in turf.
This publication will help you care for your lawn in ways that prevent and reduce contamination of our water resources by sediment, fertilizers, and pesticides.
This pesticide factsheet covers the use and characteristics of the herbicide Fortress (isoxaben + dithiopyr).
This publication describes the best management practices (BMP) to reduce sediment and keep nutrients and pesticides applied to turf from contaminating North Carolina's water resources.
This publication covers the identification and control of Florida betony, an aggressive, rhizomatous perennial in the mint family categorized as a category B noxious weed in North Carolina.
Durable athletic fields begin with sound construction and careful planning. Good management practices can increase a field's durability. The basic concepts presented in this guide can help field managers extend the usability of athletic fields.
Knowing a few basics and having some appropriate tools is all that is necessary before you can build your own baseball field. These illustrated instructions can be used to set up a baseball field on a relatively level, open area of ground.
