Last night Gary and Sherry Freking were kind enough to host our monthly Association meeting. A good time was had by all! I look forward to these meeting because it gives me a chance to connect with my neighbors talk about ideas and participate in an organization that has a common concern for all of us living here. (I also got to see Sherry’s fabulous new drapes). Present from left to right were Sherry Freking, Earl Crow, Don Mills, Gary Freking, Jim Pence, Ann Krause and not in the picture.. me (Robbie Wigley). Ann wasn’t really sleeping… my batteries on my camera died, so no second chances for a “redo”.
The meeting minutes are now posted in the right sidebar under Monthly Minutes. Click on the heading, you will find them listed in PDF format to be opened.
(You can click on the picture to see a larger version.. to reduce it just click it again)
Regarding our discussion of lawn improvement on Tuesday night, I researched a little about the production of urea, a source of nitrogen for enhancing lawn growth.
I was a little suprised Tuesday night to hear the lawn treatment specialist talk about the fact the lawn treatment he uses is derived only from “natural minerals”. When reviewing the proposal I noticed that the treatment is 4-0-0 with (Ca). To me that means nitrogen with calcium (or lime). As we all know, certain level of both promote for plant health and growth.
I was a little surprised that he was able to recommend a treatment for our whole area without any evidence of soil testing or discussion of soil type. As far as I know applying nitrogen, especially foliar application, will quickly green up a lawn. I am not so sure however that that visual appearance is the only or best measure of a healthy lawn.
When we asked him about how nitrogen is derived from “only natural minerals”, he said that the nitrogen is actually “pharmaceutical urea”. Urea is produced by combining ammonia and carbon dioxide, not from “natural minerals”. I’m not sure what the pharmaceutical grade has to do with lawn health. I’m not aware of anything such as pharmaceutical manure, but I know manure, but I think most will not dispute the value of manure for a healthy lawn. Of course manure is a good source of nitrogen, (urea).
There was also discussion about lawns burning and about “weedy areas” developing where a healthy grass lawn is not growing. Keep in mind it takes water, nutrients and the correct growing conditions to grow green lawn grass. To my knowledge our lawn grasses are not the native grasses in this area, and our soil structure has been altered considerably by the construction of our homes and “natural pond”.
I suspect we may find wide variance in our soil structure from home to home and from different areas of our lawn depending on the reconstructed soils in our yards. Much depends on the depth of the type of top soil spread over our yards at construction/landscaping time. Much also depends on how the lawns have been maintained since construction, in some cases over 20 years ago.
If I find time, I will take some soil samples of our yard to see what the actual soil composition and nutrient levels are. This is a sevice that is often provided by soil fertilizer and drop management organizations.
See the following address about the production and use of urea,
http://stamicarbon-com.combell-linux2.agency.be/urea/_en/index.htm
Lime or calcium is also an age old fertilizer, but it should be noted that one of the purposes of lime is to alter the ph of the soil to promote growth. Does anyone know the ph of our lawns?
Wow Gary… thanks for all your research. You make some really good points and it would seem to me that we should revisit these issues. My concern has been the run off into the pond but I am far from having solid knowledge in this area. It would be great if you could continue to check things out and give us your recomendations. What would you like to see done?
Thanks Gary that was alot of research. Is there a source that compares liquid vs. granular for run off? I thought that was the advantage to Jared’s contract was his application would be liquid and he would do it himself.