EPISODE #2
EPISODE 2 TRANSCRIPT
Kyle: Welcome to Lawn Care Secrets with Romy Robinson. I’m your Co-host, Kyle Kelin, and we’re here to provide you quick tips and hidden secrets so you can have the greenest lawn on your block.
Hey, Romy. How you doing?
Romy: I’m good. How about yourself?
Kyle: Pretty good. So, I know it’s raining down here in Houston. So how’s at your house? How have you been?
Romy: Actually, it’s good. I bought some prairies for everybody that’s affected by the flood and all the volunteers … you know you’re doing a good thing, it comes back to you but I’m good. I had a little sleep rouge at …
Kyle: Yeah. We got lucky as well. No damage at our house. So obviously the first and most important thing is people’s lives and then the property damage but what have you been doing out to help with some of the lawn caring and getting the lawns back to normal? …
Romy: … a pile on top everybody … you could let up that stuff out front of the yard and stuff and of course I’m bypassing that and give it a little break. When it comes a time to treat your lawn but seeing a lot of stuff going on right now, I’ve actually seen it before the hurricane yet but grub worms are really, really feeding on the lawns right now. The St. Augustine, remember, Bermuda doesn’t get grub worms but seeing a lot of the lawns are dying, probably 8 out of 10 St. Augustine lawns right now being affected by sod webworms or grub worms, it’s important that you try to catch this early. The longer you wait, of course more grass will die and the longer it takes to get it to recover. If you watch your lawn, a lot of them are dying right now. Your St. Augustine also is getting brown patch disease real bad. Let me explain a little bit about Brown Patch Disease. What it is, you’ll see these brown circles in your lawn look like crop circles. What that is, its a disease, a fungus that’s in the soil underneath the grass. It’s like cancelling the dirt, it’s incurable. Every single year, when you get to the fall months, the new temperature will moisture on the lawn. It’s gonna trigger that disease and come out a worm disease. Meaning…
Kyle: So again, they get out or?
Romy: Well, there’s 50/50 chance you can dig it out but if you saw the new dirt, it may show up, it may not. It’s in the soil so you may not get all the disease out but pulling out that soil off. Our people have done that before and its come back and I’ve heard people that we saw that area removed has come back but if you don’t wanna get into that part of it what it is it’s a disease, it’s in the dirt that turns your grass brown. Once it comes up it stays on the lawn ‘til the following spring before it goes back to warm. It likes to cool the temperatures in the fall, a lot of moisture, so the key to that disease is to help yourself start cutting your water back this time with you from here until about April. On your St. Augustine lawn, what I recommend is once every 7 to 12 days. If you wanted you can do it another way, just cut it off and turn the water on if you feel like it needs and don’t stay on schedule and when you do water, water for 20 minutes, water for a long period of time, one time and then turn it off and turn it back on when you feel it needs. Don’t stay on schedule.
Kyle: So I was afraid that ah, I don’t keep the sprinkler on a scheduled off but … drying my yard out will die.
Romy: Well, it’s not gonna die.
Kyle: It’s not gonna die?
Romy: Not this time of year cause as the fall/soil temperatures get colder, that water, that moisture sets on that soil a whole lot longer. It’s not evaporating, say like summer time when the soil temperatures a lot hotter so as the temperature gets colder, you can back off more and more on that water and every time you water, water for 20 minutes, water for a good long time. If you’re getting a lot run off, then cut that time and then have 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes around 1 o’clock in the afternoon. You’ll never water late afternoon or evening especially on St. Augustine appearing brown patch disease so water setting all night long, not evaporate but speeding fire, that’s what makes the disease come up, that’s what makes it spread. The scattered soil temperature in the fall a lot of moisture I’m seeing it, you know, an 8 out of 10 lawns are gonna set brown patch disease on St. Augustine lawn.
Kyle: An 8 out of 10?
Romy: Yeah. You’re gonna see it. If you have it right now and the neighbor doesn’t have it, I guarantee it between the hot spring these are gonna have it somewhere that long but it can be brought in a number of ways.
Kyle: I’m a terrible for as long as my neighbor dig in they can have those yards brown patch disease. I think it’s headed my way.
Romy: Well it’s easy to get brown patch disease and anything grub worm and soft grub worms- disease cause they’re all pretty happening right now so you have to know what you’re looking for so if you know you got brown patch disease, which one do you slow your moisture down, slow your water down. It’s gonna come out no matter what. Nothing’s gonna stop it from coming up or get rid of it or make it smaller. If anybody tells you “Oh I got a product that I bought, I put down and they got rid of brown patch, they went brown back” I know it’s incurable.
Kyle: It’s not gonna stop it?
Romy: Yeah. Nothing’s gonna stop it from coming up and get rid of it. Relax a little bit. If you see it in your yard, it’s gonna take its course. We’re gonna get more rain between now and spring, and were gonna get colder temperatures. Those two things there will make it come up in spring so expect to see it, expect it to grow, become spring when the temperature rises in the soil temperature gets warmer outside, that disease is gonna go warm meaning it’s all gonna green back up come spring in some of your (things)
Kyle: Ah, I don’t have it come back.
Romy: Well, you still have it. It’s just going warm during spring and summer showing on the same spot on fall. I’m seeing it a lot right now. It’s normal just rest assured the lawns gonna recover but if it’s sod web worms, grub worms they kill the lawns. Brown Path Disease just scars it like a bruise on your arm, it’s gonna stay there until spring on your lawn,
Kyle: Let’s talk a little more about bugs and sod web worms and chinch bugs before we do, guys do you have any questions you wanna send in and have Romy answer, send us questions to askromy@gmail.com and we’ll get those jit up and answer it right now. So could you give the audience an overview of the different types of insects you see throughout the year and especially once they consume right now.
Romy: Well throughout the year in the summer time course, chinch bug season starts around May and ends about the end of August, give it take a week or two we’re no longer seeing chinch bugs anymore but right now your main concern from here until winter time is feed through grub worms and sod web worms. If you do get sod web worms and identify sod web worms, once you treat form to know that your product that you put down is working within about a 7 to 15 day period, you’ll start the to see the St. Augustine start peeking up and looking better in that area. If you see the area getting worse after you treat it after about 7 to 15 days, you may not apply the product right. Read the label. It’ll tell you how to put it down same goes with grub worms when you put the product down and kill the grubs within about a 7 to 15 day period, you’ll see the St. Augustine starting to recover in that area that didn’t die but the key is catching it early. It’ll save yourself a lot of trouble, if you wait a long time you’re just letting a lot of grass die. It’s gonna be next spring before you get that long to recover in that area.
Kyle: So are you … use by a professional like yourself, what criteria’s should I be looking for in the product to do that treatment?
Romy: Well it’ll say on the label. I mean you go to you know, any home depot or any store like that and but the stuff. It’ll have a big old grub on the bug. So you know, I didn’t say you know, grub control on it, you want to make sure you’re buying the right product. Sometimes you can get the insecticide and kill the grubs and the sod webworms so you can kill two birds in one stone so … you know, look for that stuff.
Kyle: And then as far as, what’s the cost and effort to treat for grub worms and sod webworms?
Romy: Well to be prepared until December … whirly bird, yeah it’ll set about every 3 to 4 weeks on the bag and you wanna be consistent with it. Just do what the label says and it should be fine.
Kyle: You’re doing that every 3 to 4 weeks throughout there but what’s a whirly bird?
Romy: Whirly Birds, that little thing you put the stuff in, you do it by hand. I call it, it’s a hand spreader but I call it a Whirly Bird.
Kyle: Alright. Having to said that if I get grub worms bad enough every next spring, what’s the typical for the lawns that you treat and how quick can you …
Romy: That’s a very good question and it depends on how quick you get to them. If you get to them at an early stage, when you start noticing the grass dying right away and where you can check for grub worms and see if you got them, if you know this part, you know your lawn’s nice and green all the way through and one spot just has a little discolored … and don’t just go down there and grab the grass like you’re pulling up a carpet and pull up on it and reach come straight out the ground and loose the grass come straight out the ground. It’s important you treat it, you know, right away. If you catch it in at an early stage, it will recover you know 15, 20, 30 days but if you start waiting ’til it’s a size of a hood of a truck and it’s dead in that area, what’s gonna naturally happen is once you put your insecticide in there, weeds and Bermuda grass is gonna start in filling in that area, that’s natural. Bermuda’s good filler don’t pull all that dead grass out there cause it can even cost you money in residing because once you pull that grass out, it’s gonna be nothing but dirt and you’re gonna have to reside it or it’s gonna naturally just stealing weeds in Bermuda. So what you do is leave that dead St. Augustine in there. The Bermuda will fill in, leave it there. I will to have Bermuda grass or some kind of green than have big old dirt spots. So let that Bermuda go ahead and fill in and you cannot put a weed control on it at that time if its real hot cause you’ll kill that St. Augustine whose trying to grow back in that area. So put your insecticide down, let the Bermuda go ahead and fill on in. The weeds come on in, that’s alright. Get that St. Augustine healthy again that surrounds it or that’s still alive on the middle of that area and it’ll start to overtake that area you build back in for you but if you wait too long, if it’s a size of a hood of a truck, we get close to winter and that grass slows down from growing, it’s gonna be next spring before you get that area fill back in … with St. Augustine.
Kyle: Is there, do I need to know if its grub worms or chinch bugs or is it, not matter, it’s just the time of year and it’s just treated all the same?
Romy: Well you can go to my account here on my website, it’ll tell you what it is.
Kyle: Okay.
Romy: But..
Kyle: It’s just base on the time of year right?
Romy: Exactly.
Kyle: I don’t get down to every grass and like pick up the bug and…
Romy: No, no, no.
Kyle: …and mash it up.
Romy: No, no. There’s only going to be two bugs feeding on it right now and it’s gonna be grub worms and sod webworms so if you go buy an insecticide for chinch bugs and put it down, you’re just wasting your money cause you’re not feeding right now. So it’s important that you identify what insect you got feeding on the lawn so you go buy the right product and put it down.
Kyle: And then the other … bugs and insects and what … it’s gonna be looking out for
Romy: Yeah, you just keep an eye on your lawn. I do wanna mention about watering, it’s really important right now. We’re getting into the fall, the temperatures getting cooler that means the soil temperatures starting to get colder. A lot of people think they still need to water twice a week. This is the way you need to water during this time of the year, very important, this goes for your St. Augustine and your Bermuda lawns. One time, every 7 to 12 days, 7 to 15 days, 20 minutes per zone. If you’re getting a lot run off running 20 minutes straight on the lawn then cut in half, 10 in the morning, 10 in the afternoon, make sure you’re getting 20 on that yard that day. Don’t get caught up in this “Well you’re not supposed to water in the afternoon, it’ll kill the yard.” Well that’s a myth. That’s just a bunch of, you know, stuffs you might do out there but the lawn’s going to be okay if you water the way I demonstrate it to you. As we get closer to the winter, as the temperature gets colder, you can start leaning instead a one time every 7 day, a 7 to 12 days, start leaning one time every 15 to 20. As the temperature gets colder, the water sets longer then evaporate very quick so if you water in that way, its gonna help you save money and you know you’re giving the lawn some water when it needs.
Kyle: Yeah. You were telling me before we start the recording about a customer that you were talking in about saving some money on watering.
Romy: Well, you know, everybody, you know, they see water everyday and stuff like that and I’ve been looking at that and these landscapes and lawns for so many years and customer of mine said she was watering twice a week, still she has brown patch all over the yard and when I go to my customer’s house, I leave them notes on how to water and I’ve mentioned to her you know, right now cut it back to one every 7 to 12 days and she was watering twice a week and I told her, you know, if you wanna water twice a week you can but there’s no need to and I told her if she wants to keep, you know, put money on the window just let me know when she’s gonna do it and I’ll come by and pick that money up but there’s no reason there in this time of the year to be, you know, watering that much and if you’re watering that much in this time of the year, all you’re doing is ask for the brown patch to come up quicker on you and you know, you’re just making it grow so keep the water down even on your landscape, you know, a lot of people wanna water twice a week, stuff like that on the landscape. If you got your native plants out here, you got clear, soft born/ferns, crepe myrtles, net venus, all those schrubs their real hard you don’t have to water, you know, twice a week, three times a week right now. Once every, you know, 7 to 12 days is fine and once you go to the lawn, you know once it gets colder and you start watering once every 7 to 15 days or 12 to 15, just do the landscape at the same time that frequency 20 minutes each time, you’ll be fine up until next spring.
Kyle: The sooner were down here in Houston and still pretty warm so imagine those north of us that … us even more so …
Romy: Yeah, yeah definitely. It’s gonna save you money in the long run and if you’re watering the plant the way it used to be.
Kyle: Yeah, we’ll go open up the schedule of my sprinkler.
Romy: Yeah you have a little money in your pocket and … Christmas.
Kyle: Alright! So guys, don’t forget if you have any questions for Romy, send them to askromy@gmail.com and also check out Romy’s Youtube channel. We got some great videos that shows you how to do some of these lawn care yourself and that’s askromy on Youtube and you can also visit the website at greenerthanever.com, there’s a, Romy has a great calendar there and I’ll put that on the show notes, there’s a great calendar there. There’s some great pictures of chinch bugs and sod webworms and so forth you can see that as well and it’s a great … and so Romy, anything else to the listeners before we take off?
Romy: Ah yeah. Don’t put weed control on your St. Augustine lawn right now still too hot, you’ll kill the yard. I know a lot of y’all seeing weeds come up on your St. Augustine. It’s still too hot to put it down. If you put it down, you risk the chance of killing that grass. Another thing, I appreciate everybody listening. I’m getting a lot of positive feedback from my Youtube stuff and my Podcasts and I’m thankful for that. I appreciate everybody listening and positive sport, thanks a lot guys. We’ll talk to y’all again probably some time close to winter and tell you what’s going on around that time. You all take care now.
