Autumn lawn maintenance - who's doing what?

[Chassis]

Last weekend I core aerated, overseeded, fertilized and Grub-Exed. Feeling pretty good about myself right about now. Serious raking will start in about a month, but leaves are definitely falling now.

We've had a bunch of rain so the grass is growing and it's green everywhere, even the trouble spots. Hoping next year's grub and crabgrass issues will be reduced vs. this year. We have a bad time here with Japanese beetles, and the crabgrass is pretty stubborn.

What are ya'll doing on your lawns, now that most parts of the US are seeing
cooler weather?

 

[Prashster]

I'm in Central 'Jersey and I'm planning to:

1. Manually pick out and remove as much mature crabgrass that's about to seed itself. I did this last year and my prob this year was down like 90%.
2. aerate, lime, overseed, fertilize, mulch. I rented a slit-seeder last year that worked well.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the grub-ex doesn't do much good now. I thought you have to hit the lawn with it in the spring.

Also, I heard that you gotta hit the lawn with crabgrass preventer when 'the forsythia blooms start to drop'. CG germination is apparently highly correlated with this event.

What type of seed are you using in PA?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Mikey]

I'm fertilizing the grapefruit trees, changing the oil in the lawnmower, rerouting the inlet for the sprinkler system on a new dock, and celebrating that I'll only have to mow once a month .

 

[Chassis]

prashster,

I use the pre-bagged variety in Home Depot. I think it's Scott's "Sun and Shade". I also use a near 100% fescue seed from Scott's for my totally shaded front yard. I've had reasonable germination success with it. I believe better quality/better priced seed can be found at agriculture supply houses but there isn't one convenient to my location.

I am paranoid about grubs so I have been doing treatments with Grub Ex every 6 weeks. Nothing scientific about it, but I thought grubs were active in the spring and fall. I'll do one more application in mid-October, along with a final fertilizer late Oct-early Nov.

I need to continue the crabgrass pulling. It is my new "top priority" on the lawn. I follow up with spot seeding the large bare patches left over from pulling.