If your lawn has big blotches of brown turf that pulls off of the runner very easily, you have Large Patch. Serenade and Rhapsody are two organic products that are labeled for this disease. Cleary’s 3336, Dual Action Fungicide, and PCNB are also very effective against the disease. Treat now or you will have large, dead, weed infested areas in the spring.

It is time to winterize your turf. Remember the winter kill last spring? Now is the time to prepare your grass for winter.

If you had winter kill last spring, you need to be sure to correct low and poorly drained areas, reduce thatch in the yard, increase air movement in low areas, keep your lawn hydrated and feed and mow your grass lower than normal (centipede 1.0 to 1.5 inches, St. Augustine 2.5 to 3.0 inches).   

Charleston is in a very unique micro-climate. For national chains and national branded products, the Lowcountry is a marketing nightmare. We often get included with the rest of South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.  In most of these areas people’s lawns are fescue grass and ryegrass. The winterizing fertilizers that are advertised are for cool season grasses not the warm season grasses we have here. Using these higher nitrogen products at this time of year would not be recommended by Clemson University for this area.  

The flip side of that is if the Lowcountry is grouped with the Florida zone. We are cooler than the south Florida areas where the grass does not go dormant and it never freezes. A winterizing product for Florida would be different than a product used to winterize the turf here, or if it was the same product, the timing would be way different (here you would put it out earlier). Just because the bag says “winterizing fertilizer” does not mean it is designed for the Lowcountry. Good products to use in the Lowcountry include 00-00-25 with 10 percent iron, Possum’s Minors, Hydrahume, Soil Activator, or a light application of Cotton Burr Compost. If you have a thatch issue, Bio Grounds Keeper (BGK) 7500 is a granular organic product with micro-organisms that will chew up thatch. Thatch is a main contributor to winter kill. All these products will help put sugars in the plant that will act as anti-freeze for the plant. Consider using these products in your beds as well as your lawn with the exception of the BGK 7500.

As much as I stress not to over water, I’m almost scared to write this next bit of advice. Your lawn and plants need water over the winter.

The wind and the low humidity air will dry out your landscape. Do you ever get chapped lips in the winter? Water is one of nature’s best insulators and in the right amounts will help avoid winter kill. All lawns have different exposures and soil types so the right amount of water varies from house to house.

Moles always get more active in the fall. Moles, like fire ants, are managed not eradicated. Due to the success one of a Pest Management Companies owner had in his yard, we have had a surge in the sale of one of our mole products – “The Smoke Bomb”. The product worked very well for him and he told his neighbors.

“The Smoke Bomb” worked well for his neighbors and they told their neighbors.

With the amount of winter kill we had last year and thousands of dollars of dead grass, I did not want to be too brief with that topic. I will get through this to do list by 2012, maybe!

Bill Lamson-Scribner can be reached during the week at Possum’s Landscape and Pest Control Supply, 481 Long Point Rd in Mt. Pleasant (971-9601), 3325 Business Circle in North Charleston (760-2600), or 606 Dupont Rd, in Charleston (766-1511).  Fax your questions to 406-2700 or e-mail them to your newspaper’s editors. You can also call in your questions to “ The Garden Clinic”, Saturdays from 12-1 p.m., on 1250 WTMA  (The Big Talker).