Premier Lawn and Pest Control

Lawn Tips

We can help you recognize those troublesome areas in your lawn or shrubs and provide solutions to help regain a beautiful, healthy yard.

Crabgrass

Crabgrass can be a homeowner's worst enemy. This pesky weed grows at an uncontrollable rate and often has a different hue than grass. It disrupts the harmony of an otherwise beautiful lawn, because crab grass stands out and makes the lawn uneven. This is especially true after the first killing frost of the fall season, when the weed turns brown and the areas around it remain green.

Crabgrass is an annual plant. It's seeds can germinate from mid-spring to late summer. If a lawn is infested with crabgrass for several consecutive seasons, the soil will become rich with crabgrass seeds, and the problem will in increase in severity over time. Crabgrass can survive in most soil conditions and is allowed to spread more rapidly when turf is stressed due to drought conditions or other harmful lawn conditions.

Unfortunately, the chemical, Asulox, which was available for many years, is no longer labled for use on residential and commercial lawns. Therefore, the only effective methods of control include killing the area with a non-selective herbicide such as RoundUp and replacing with new sod or you can purchase a product available by clicking the following link www.crabgrassalert.com

Basket Grass basketgrass

This wild grass is found predominantly in moist and shady areas of a lawn. It thrives in this environment and is able to spread easily since the turf is usually weaker in these areas due to lack of sunlight and other environmental factors.

It can be identified by its wavy leaves, which feature a white mid vein that divides each leaf into two uneven halves.

While routine broadleaf weed control can be helpful in the control of this wild grass, complete control is not possible. The main concern is that because this is a wild grass and not a weed, a high dose of herbicide is necessary to kill it. Because the turf is usually already weak in the areas where it is growing, the herbicide is likely to cause the turf to become even weaker making the problem worse.

The most effective control for this is to correct the cultural problem that exists. Some suggestions include:

Trim trees to provide more adequate sunlight
Cut back the watering in shaded areas
Place sod or plugs in bare areas of lawn
Make plant beds in areas where grass is weak

Leaf Spot Fungus

If you have a St. Augustine grass lawn, you may be having some problems with it now that the rainfall has been so frequent. Gray leaf spot, a fungus disease, is the most likely culprit.

The first symptoms you are likely to notice with gray leaf spot is that the lawn becomes thinner in certain areas. Closer examination will reveal withered, brown grass leaves in these thin areas. However, if you examine the grass a bit closer, especially in areas that aren't so severely affected, you will see the individual leaf spots that are the true beginning stages of the disease. Initial symptoms include small pinhead size spots that are olive-green to brown in color. These enlarge and form circular to oblong spots that are tan to brown colored with distinctive dark brown margins.

If the thinning of the lawn has started to become noticeable, you may wish to make some fungicide applications to reduce further spread of the disease. Usually two treatments are recommended at least a couple of weeks apart. You can also help the lawn to recover sooner by keeping your mower blade sharp and only watering with your irrigation system when needed during periods of regular rainfall particularly in the summer months.

Asian Cycad Scale—Sago Palms

Asian cycad scale originates in Thailand and southern China. It is believed to have been accidentally introduced into Florida through the legal importation of cycads. Infestations of this scale insect have been moving rapidly across the state since this pest was discovered in the mid 1990's near Miami. It attacks sago palms only at this time.

Much research has been done and control is difficult if it can be obtained at all. Many property owners throughout Central and Southern Florida have chosen to simply remove these plantings from their landscape and replace them with a more resistant variety. This would be our advice as well.

Treatments provided within our regular shrub program will not control these insect pests. If you are interested in a treatment program specifically for sago palms, please contact our office and we will explain the frequency and pricing of the treatments to be performed.

Brown Patch Fungus

This disease usually begins as small patches that turn yellow and then reddish-brown, brown or straw-colored as the leaves start to die. Patches can expand to several feet in diameter. It is not uncommon to see rings of yellow/brown turf with apparently healthy turf in the center. Turf at the outer margin of a patch may appear dark and wilted.

Please note that for the diseased turf grass to recover, it must be growing. Symptoms will not disappear until new leaves develop, and the old leaves are removed by mowing. Since this disease normally occurs when the turf grass is not growing very rapidly, recovery may be very slow. The fungicides simply help to stop the disease from spreading, they do not promote turf grass growth while it is affected by current weather conditions.

Application of a fungicide is recommended. Usually a minimum of two applications is necessary for control. As per the guarantees of your treatment program, we offer treatment for fungus and it is priced according to the size of the areas to be treated.

We recommend the scheduling of two applications, about two weeks apart.

CHILLI THRIPS ON SHRUB LEAVES

We are providing this information to inform you of a plant pest new to the Central Florida area that is causing damage to shrub plants. The most common damage has been found on Holly, Indian Hawthorne, Pittosporum, and Viburnum plants.

If you currently participate in an ongoing shrub treatment program, please be assured that we are making every effort to provide the best control available as recommended by studies at the University of Florida.

Chilli thrips attacks all above ground parts of its host plants, and prefers the young leaves, buds and fruits. Heavy feeding damage turns tender leaves, buds, and fruits bronze to black in color. Damaged leaves curl upward and appear distorted. Infested plants become stunted or dwarfed, and leaves with petioles detach from the stem, causing defoliation in some plants. The abundance of chilli thrips is low in the rainy season, but becomes high during the dry season.

Adult thrips are small about 0.5 - 1.2 mm long. It is difficult to recognize this thrips with the naked eye, and definitive identification is best accomplished at approximately 40 to 80 x magnification

It is important to check plants with abnormal growth. At the initial stage of infestation, the underside surfaces of the leaves become shiny. These leaves soon become discolored and curly.

Read more about chilli thrips at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IN638

Southern Chinch Bug

The southern chinch bug, Blissus insularis Barber, is currently the most difficult-to-control and damaging insect pest of St. Augustine grass in Florida. Nymphs and adults feed on plant fluids within leaf sheaths, down in the thatch, and this feeding kills the grass plants and contributes to weed invasion.

Homeowners and lawn care companies seek to prevent this damage by repeatedly applying insecticides to keep chinch bug numbers low. However, chinch bug populations have developed resistance to every major chemical class that has been used against them and host plant resistance has been overcome. Many factors must be considered when trying to control these pests including adequate watering, proper mowing height,, and prevention of other factors that may cause stress to your turf.

Several insects live in St. Augustine grass lawns, so proper insect identification is important before
deciding that a problem exists. During the nymph stage, chinch bugs are red in color with a faint white stripe on the back. Adult southern chinch bugs are about 1/8 to 1/10 of an inch long. The wings are folded flat on the back and are shiny white with a triangular-shaped black marking in the middle of the outer edge of each wing. Adults may have long or short wings, and populations often contain both. Their bodies are black.