Having perfectly green, lush, healthy grass is what everyone wants for their lawn. To achieve these results, more and more homeowners are employing a lawn treatment service that applies various solutions every 7 or 8 weeks throughout the year.
Among the services performed, the pre-emergent treatment is very important. Pre-emergent does exactly what it sounds like. It kills weeds prior to their emergence. Now, it’s a bit more complicated than that so we’d like to give you a basic outline of why pre-emergent is so important and describe the benefits, and dos and don’ts.
How Pre-Emergents Work
The herbicides that are contained in a pre-emergent treatment application create, in essence, a barrier of vapor that destroys weeds before they are germinated. Pre-emergents used in residential mixtures often come in granular form and are mixed with fertilizer.
The timing of your pre-emergent application is vital to their effectiveness. Strategic timing is absolutely required so your weeds can be controlled prior to their emergence from the soil. If you decide to do your application yourself, a broadcast spreader will work perfectly fine.
Tips for Successful Treatment
Though it may seem counterintuitive, pre-emergent treatments are not effective against existing weeds, only weeds that have yet to be germinated. To control existing weeds, we recommend a few things such as pulling the weeds, application of weed killer, or hiring a lawn service to treat and eradicate your weeds and other lawn pests.
To ensure the success of and proper execution of destroying weeds before they grow, you must follow the manufacturers instructions to a T. The ratio of fertilizer to herbicide must be precise, and the spread of the solution must be as even as possible. It really needs to be like a blanket to smother the weeds, so to speak.
The last step in do-it-yourself pre-emergent weed control is to water in the solution. If the herbicide doesn’t get properly watered, which generally is about a half inch of rainwater or 45 minutes to an hour of solid sprinkler time, the vapor barrier will not form and weeds will once again own your yard. Don’t you want to be the owner of your yard? Well, if this is too much work, hire a professional lawn service to help beautify your lawn. You’ll be very glad you did.
Weed-Free Lawns
Aside from normal weed treatments, a pre-emergent treatment is the most basic and earliest form of weed prevention. It doesn’t matter if you do all you can pulling weeds if you’re not controlling them before germination. All of that being said, it’s vitally important that either you or a professional perform a pre-emergent treatment each year toward the end of February or at the beginning of March for optimum results.
Perfectly Green Lawn Care
At Perfectly Green, your lawn means more to us than just green. We are happy to take care of any of your lawn care or weed control needs. Give us a call to learn about discounts and find out more about the first treatment discount by signing up for the 8 treatment annual program.