Friday, September 9, 2011

Color just arrived at Johnson's

Colorful Pansies from Colorado

Spring flowering bulbs from The Netherlands

Kansas grown Asters

We finally made it.  September is here and the color keeps arriving at Johnson's.  This week, our spring flowering bulbs arrived from The Netherlands, Pansies arrived from cool colorful Colorado, and our Kansas Asters have arrived.  We always encourage buying local, but the Dutch grow the best bulbs, the cool nights of Colorado grow the best pansies for early fall, and our Kansas Aster grower grows the best Asters.
The Pansies and Asters will love to be in the ground right now, but the spring flowering bulbs would best be planted starting in October.  Right now though, we have the best selection of bulbs, so get them now while the selection is at its best.
The cooler days, and nights have made a world of difference in our attitudes and landscape, get out and enjoy it.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Better Late Than Never

We've been encouraging people for over a month now to get their lawns ready for over-seeding this fall.  If  you live in the Wichita area, you know that bermuda grass likes to invade our turf type fescue lawns.  Bermuda by itself can make a nice lawn.  Bermuda by nature is a spreading turf variety and can creep into  our fescue lawns.  Ideally one would have sprayed their bermuda in fescue in early August to get a kill, then over-seeding can start in late August/Early September.

Like many things, I put off spraying the bermuda, I'll blame it on the hot dry summer.  Actually, the herbicide Killz-All works best when the plants are actively growing, which the were not a month ago. With some moisture, the bermuda has come to life and I have decided to convert our lawn at our 13th Street store to Gard'N-Wise fescue blend.

We sprayed the lawn today (September 7th) with Hi-Yield Killz-All.  Instead of only spraying the bermuda, we chose to completely kill off the existing turf and plant the latest varieties recommended by Kansas State University research.

Sprayed lawn September 7, 2011
Watch here for updates and see how our new lawn progresses.

Lawn almost dead September 12, 2011
You know how when you spray something and you start asking yourself after a couple of days, "Is that stuff working"  Not that I talk to myself, but I was wondering this weekend if the Killz-All was working.  I thought that maybe it was starting to turn a little bit yellow.  I was just getting impatient.  Whenever I am helping someone with an over-seeding project, I normally tell them to wait a week to see much of the grass starting to die.  Well today, it happened.  I came back from lunch, and the lawn is close to scalping and seeding.  I am getting a great kill in only 5 days.  Hopefully we can get on with the project later this week, stay tuned.