Question
QUESTION: I recently just brought my first house. I am young (25) and coming straight from mom's home. I have no idea about lawns or mowing (never had to worry about it). The previous owner had her garden professionally landscaped and it was beautiful (hence the word "was"). However, she informed me that she used chemicals (the kind where you had to put up the little green signs "keep off the grass"). So when spring came I wanted to try to do the lawn myself with these chemicals (not knowing how bad they were for my children). I picked up every chemical that I saw on T.V (Scott's of course). After a week of putting everything down, I broke out in serious hives all over, went to the allergist and she recommended that I go organic. I have no idea what that means and how to do that. My grass is now riddled with some little white flowers (I've heard they're called weeds), mushrooms and crabgrass. I also had some a bunch of purple long stem "furry" looking things, but mowed them away and they haven't returned. I water on a schedule. Also I have a bunch of flowers (roses, black eyed Susan, etc.) (have a gardener, but he is doing a horrible job)I need help quick. I need that beautiful lawn back without the harmful chemicals. Sorry for such the long question. Please help me. zip code: 11735

ANSWER: What kind of Grass did the previous owner plant in your lawn, Quiana?  Any way to find that out?

What's the sun situation?  Sounds like full sun to me.  Just checking.

Great question.  Lots of details and I can see you don't know where to begin.  Welcome to the club.

STEP 1.  GET A SOIL TEST.  The Cornell Cooperative Extension Service will give you all kinds of juicy details that the previous owner NEVER came close to knowing.  Traditional Gardeners never do this.  Mainly because Scotts commercials never tell them to do that.  Scotts is in the business of making money.  A soil test won't help Scotts.  But it WILL tell you all kinds of secrets about your soil.  This is absolutely the most important thing you will ever do for your Lawn.  And because I have no doubt you are considering right this very minute that you want to skip this step, I'll give you my little Soil Test story.

Which begins with a question:  Suppose you want to make a cake?  What would you do?

Of course, first, you would get out the cookbook and make a list of Ingredients.  Right?

Then you'd check the cupboard and the refrigerator.  Do you have eggs?  Do you have flour?  Milk?  Vanilla?  You'd make a list.  Right?

If you already have Flour, you don't need to buy any more Flour.  You'd take that off the list.

Maybe you already have Eggs.  You have 2 Eggs.  You need 5 Eggs.  Make sure you buy some Eggs.

You check everything on the list of ingredients to make sure you have it.  Then you'd go shopping.  Right?  And when you get home, you preheat the oven and you're all ready to cook.  You don't just go to the cookbook and open it up to the Cake Recipe.  You check the ingredients first.  You make sure you have everything you need.

Quiana, How in the world are you going to bake a cake without checking the cupboards and the refrigerator first?

You need to find that out!

What's the pH of your soil?

What minerals are in there?  How much?  Anything you don't want?

You don't know!

A soil test will tell you what's in the cupboard, what's the oven temperature, how long was the cake in there, if you have Eggs and Butter and Flour... These are things you NEED to know.

Because...

You CANNOT grow wonderful green grass without this information.  In fact, you can't grow anything else.  You MUST get a soil test.

And here's where you can do that:

http://www.css.cornell.edu/soiltest/SubmittingSoil.html

Your local Cooperative Extension Service is based at Cornell University, one of the premiere agricultural research centers in the universe.  There's a modest fee and it's worth its weight in gold.

Be VERY serious about following their instructions so that you can give them a valid sample.  Remember, a soil test will SAVE YOU MONEY, Quiana.  You won't be paying for things you already have in your soil.  You can spend it on lunch with your mother instead.  A swing set.  A bag of
state of the art Bluegrass from Seedland.com.  A couple of Kobe Steaks for your new Weber grill.  This is a good investment.  It is smart, it is green, and it is the first thing you must do before you do anything else.

STEP 2.  MOW, MOW, MOW YOUR LAWN.  That gardener needs to stay busy.  Have him mow your Grass like there's no tomorrow, and DO NOT BAG THE CLIPPINGS.  I'll go into the why-nots of that another day.  The clippings STAY.  There is no argument on this.  Since the previous owner was tres traditional, the gardener will think you're nuts.  Just remember you are enlightened, he is not.  The results will speak for themselves.  Oh... take pictures.  You want a 'before' for your 'after' Christmas cards.

STEP 3.  IS YOUR HOUSE FOR THE BIRS?  Make your house Bird-Friendly.  Birds and their arch-enemies, Squirrels, are badly under-rated by Traditional Gardeners.  Get yourself a Birdbath and a Birdfeeder for starters.  Try to put the Birdfeeder somewhere away from the Lawn if that's possible, so that the spilling seeds don't start sprouting all over the place -- which is not the end of the world, but it complicates things a little.  Birds and Squirrels get hungry, and they need a balanced diet.  They will devour insects like you would not believe.  They will eat weed seeds like you would not believe.  Birds and Lawns are a match made in Heaven.  Traditional Gardeners don't think twice about poisoning their Birdfood, but you will.  irdbaths and Birdfeeders will get the neighborhood Birds over to your house for breakfast, lunch and dinner -- a very good thing to have since they eat tons of bugs and their droppings are free fertilizer.

STEP 4.  ASK YOUR GARDENER TO CORE-AERATE THE LAWN.  Every few years, a lawn should be core-aerated.  You don't need to do this every year, unless there is a significant amount of heavy traffic on your lawn that would compact it.  Since the previous Gardener did not know what s/he was doing -- OK, maybe I am exaggerating, but there are Gardeners and there are GARDENERS -- you probably need that now.  By aerating, you pump air into the soil under your Grass.  This is something that should be done soon.

Take a good look at those 'little white flowers', Quiana.  Do they look like White Clover?  White Clover is GREAT!  Some people call them Weeds.  I call them Nitrogen Fixating Superfactory!  They look like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_clover

The flower is very sweet and the plant is an amazing little wonder.

'Purple long stem furry' does not bring to mind anything I am familiar with.  Probably if I took a look at it, I'd be able to tell you what it is.  The best thing about that is that different weeds are clues about your Soil condition.  You'll get a lot of that from Cornell, but it's nice to have the backup, too.

That's it in a long, long nutshell.  I'll stop now.  Sorry for the long answer.  I have things to tell you about your Roses, etc, next time.  Those Roses should be in full bloom right now, probably showing the first Blackspot symptoms.  We'll get to that later.  Any questions?

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Yes, those are the flowers. Okay, so I don't need to kill them with anything right. Good, I will definitely do the soil sample and mow like crazy. Yes, roses are blooming. I also wanted to know about worm poop. My front grass is turning brown and it's need help quick. My friend told me about this product and I wanted to know if it would work. Thanks so much for the help.

Answer
Brown Grass... not a good sign.  When did this begin?  How much is Brown?  How Brown are we talking -- slightly Yellow and then light Tan and finally Brown?  Is it Brown in a round Circle or Oval, or is that Brown front to back of the yard?

Has nothing to do with Worms and Worms will not help you.  Did your 'Gardener' do anything to 'help' you last time he was there?  Any neighbor opinions?  Need more info.  rsvp!