Lawn Care in Conway, PA

When we show up in early spring, the first thing we're doing is timing. We watch the forsythia bloom — when those yellow flowers open, the soil is approaching 50°F and that's the window to apply pre-emergent herbicide before crabgrass seeds germinate. We use granular pre-emergent combined with a starter fertilizer so the existing grass breaks dormancy with something to feed on. Late spring we're back for broadleaf weed control — liquid applications targeting dandelions, clover, plantain, and ground ivy, which is one of the harder ones to knock out. Mid-summer, we apply preventative grub control before the eggs hatch; skip this and you'll find out in September when sections of turf peel back like a rug. If the program includes aeration, we core-aerate in late summer — pulling actual plugs of soil to break up compaction — and then overseed immediately into those open channels. We close the year with a winterizer application that's heavier on potassium than a standard fertilizer to harden the root system before the ground freezes.

For Conway specifically: silty clay loam from river deposit origin. Drainage in the low-lying sections can be slow after heavy rain. Topsoil on many older properties is shallow — decades of mowing and minimal amendment have left the organic layer thin over dense clay subsoil.

When we take on a lawn in spring, it's usually coming out of winter dormant, thin in spots, and probably showing some winter annual weeds that got a head start during the warm spells in February. We hit it early with pre-emergent to stop the crabgrass before it starts and put the first round of fertilizer down so the existing grass has something to push into. By late spring the lawn is actively growing and that's when broadleaf weeds are easiest to knock out — we get the dandelions and clover while they're young and vulnerable. Through the summer we're keeping an eye on grub pressure and fungal issues; that mid-summer preventative application protects the root zone during the months when the most damage can happen underground. Late summer is the most important window of the year for lawns with thin or bare areas — core aeration tears up the compacted surface and overseeding fills in where the stand was weak. Going into fall the turf is thicker than it was in spring, and the winterizer application stores energy in the root system. By the following spring, you can genuinely see the difference.