Tips from Toby: Time to work on your lawn

We just put away our snow shovels. Now is the time to break out our lawn equipment and this is essential stuff!

There's a beautiful sea of new green lawn underneath that ugly layer of brown dead grass. If you missed you opportunity to short mow before all the snow hit last month it's time to clean things up.

Lower your mower height to 1 and a half inches and mow and bag the entire lawn. Exposing the new grass to warm sun is going to help it get a jump start and your lawn will start to thicken up with that shield of dead grass out of the way.

After you've done your short mow you'll want to use a good quality lawn spreader and apply fertilizer with pre emergent crabgrass control. I recommend a fertilizer with a chemical named Dimension. It's one of the top crabgrass controls on the market today and you'll only have to apply it once to control crabgrass all season. The fertilizer will give your lawn the food it's craving and you'll be on your way to the first step in my lawn program to having the best lawn on the block.

Our lawns have had a nice drink from all the melting snow so it's craving nourishment and you'll also make sure that any crabgrass that is getting ready to sprout is dead in its tracks.

Don't forget, you need to short mow your lawn down to 1 and a half inches as soon as you can and then get your first application of fertilizer with Dimension crabgrass control down before April 15th. Or the sooner the better. It's always best if you can try to apply any fertilizer prior to a good rain and be sure to follow the proper feed rate for your spreader application.

We'll see you next week!