Lawn diseases have been very active this summer  Lawn diseases are an annual threat and a frustrating problem to many lawns across the Northern Illinois area during the summer months.  With over twenty years of experience in analyzing lawns in the local area, we have seen the most widespread disease damage to leaf tissue in lawns this summer compared to past seasons.  Record-setting May rains have led to significantly large amounts of summer lawn disease development.  While a lot of lawns go dormant during the months of July and August as the leaf tissue shuts down to protect the grass roots, a dormant lawn does generally not show the damaging effects of lawn disease as the turf is already brown so the damage is disguised as simply a brown lawn.     Lawn in summer beginning to show some disease areas (circles) We get a lot of questions regarding brown spots in the lawn every season, most of which is heat and moisture related, however this season diseas...

Summer stressed lawn Summer weather has definitely arrived for the 2016 lawn season.  The last 4 weeks have brought many sunny 80 degree plus days and little rain to the Antioch-Lake Villa- Lindenhurst-Gurnee-Waukegan area.  Temperatures above the 80 degree mark for an extended amount of time and few summer storms have led to many brown lawns across the area.   Summer stress affects the lawn in several ways.  It leads to cool season grasses goin dormant, summer stress prevents the lawns ability to repair itself, it creates a changing appearance to the lawn and promotes new growth of summer weeds.  I bring up these factors because they seem to bring a lot of questions from customers and are easily explained.   As the soil and air temperatures pass the 80 degree mark, cool season grasses like fine fescues, ryegrass and bluegrass begin going dormant.  This is the natural process of survival for the grass without causing permanent damage to the...

  Tall fescue growing in lawn in spring, it grows upright and is a perennial grass greening up in spring We get many calls this time of year from homeowners complaining of crabgrass in the lawn.  Some of these homeowners are new customers complaining of previous lawn care efforts while some are our current customers.  The complaint usually states that a product didn't work or the application was mis-applied because the result is not what they want, a crabgrass-free lawn.   We spend much effort explaining to the homeowner that they are simply misled by creative national product marketing ads or they simply mis-diagnose crabgrass.  The reason we know this is quote simple.  It is absolutely impossible to have crabgrass in your lawn in Northern Illinois right now.    Crabgrass about 4 weeks after germination, it has to grow from seed annually and isn't mature until mid-summer Crabgrass is an annual grass that begins germinating e...

Late July has welcomed the growth and development of mature crabgrass once again on the lawns of Northern Illinois.  This annual ritual begins in late spring when the soil temps get above 60 degrees allowing the seed from last year's crop to germinate.  The plant begins a slow development process that really doesn't fully blossom until once the temps get above the 90 degree mark for several days in a row.  This usually occurs late July when the lack of moisture also assists in the thinning of desirable grasses leaving plenty of room for the crabgrass to fully expand.   This has happened every summer for thousands of years and will continue to do so for as long as anyone reading this will ever survive.  There are a lot of mis-identifications when it comes to spotting crabgrass so I would like to discuss a few identifiable characteristics .   Crabgrass in a thin area of turf just off of a curb .  Crabgrass is most commonly found along drive...