Entrance Weed and Feed Program

The Board recently made the decision to begin a turf weed and feed program at the front entrance.  We believe it is important for the entrance to look nice and a healthy, uniform turf is a critical part of that.  An attractive entrance is a source of pride and also helps draw prospective buyers in.

Maintaining the turf at the entrance has been challenging.  Most of the turf sits on hilly terrain and is surrounded by trees that compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight.  Weeds also compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight, but they don’t add to the appeal of the landscape like the trees.  The weeds have been slowly taking over the entrance turf.  We believe a professional turf care company can help turn the tide in favor of the turf grass.

The goal of the program is to gain control of the unsightly broad leaf weeds and Annual Bluegrass first.  These are currently visible at the entrance (as of late March).  In the summer, the most visible and aggressive weed is Spurge.  Once these weeds are under control, we are hopeful the patches of quality turf grass will thrive and spread under a professional fertilizer program.

We will not eliminate the warm season grassy weeds, such as Crabgrass, at this time.  Eliminating the warm season grassy weeds would potentially leave large patches of soil bare and lead to erosion on the steep hills.  The size of the entrance makes sodding the bare patches prohibitively expensive to take on all at once.  We will assess the turf as we progress through this program and, if necessary, determine how we might phase in turf replacement at a later time.

We have enlisted the services of Turf Tech Lawn Care.  Turf Tech has recommended a program of seven visits over a one year period.  We will pay a total of $540.54 annually  for the program (i.e. $77.22 per treatment) if we authorize all seven treatments.  We are not obligated to authorize all seven treatments and only pay for those we authorize.  We can skip treatments or cancel the program at any time without penalty.

Turf Tech applied the first treatment, a pre- and post emergent herbicide, last Friday, March 23.  The next treatment will be in May/June and consist of a post-emergent herbicide, fertilizer, and Holganix.