Always mow cool season grasses, like tall fescue and bluegrass, at a height of 3 inches. Mowing the lawn too close weakens the grass and permits many weeds to invade your lawn.
Keep your mower blades sharp to prevent turf damage. Dry white or tan colored grass blade tips are an indication that the mower blade is dull. Dull mower blades tear turf grass and can lead to disease problems.
Leave grass clippings where they lay. Grasscycling eliminates bagging labor and costs, adds organic matter and nitrogen to your soil and does not contribute to thatch build-up.
With spring gardening season right around the corner, lawn questions have been rolling into the Home & Garden Information Center (HGIC). Here I’ll address some of the most common questions about weeds and overseeding.
Dealing with Winter Weeds
Chickweed
In late winter/early spring, we typically see winter annual weeds in thin, under-fertilized, wet, or shady areas. These weeds germinated in the fall and will die as the weather warms up later in the spring. In my observations, this has not been a particularly bad year for winter annuals. They are favored by wet, mild winters and I think we had just enough “bitter cold” in January and a fairly dry stretch through December and January to reduce populations.
Typical winter annual weeds include chickweed, henbit, purple deadnettle, and shepherd’s purse. Options to address these winter annual weeds include hand pulling, spot spraying with a broadleaf herbicide, or waiting until they die once weather climbs to the 60’s and 70’s on a regular basis. For perennial weeds like dandelion which will start to re-emerge later this month, hand-pulling or spot spraying are the best methods for control.
Starting Seeds Indoors – Many types of annual flower plants can be started indoors this month. Generally, most are started 5-6 weeks before they are planted outdoors.
Spring bulbs are emerging and some are even flowering at this time. Exposed leaves may be burned later by very cold temperatures but the spring flower display will not be adversely affected.
Groundcovers are arriving in local nursery and garden centers this month. They are a great alternative to grass where grass won’t grow, where you have heavy shade or tree root problems and on steep slopes.
Grass seed. Photo: John W. Jett, Horticulture Specialist WVU Extension Service
Lawn
Late February through the end of March is the second-best time (the optimum time is late August through mid-October) to overseed your lawn to make it thicker or to cover bare areas. The freezing and thawing of the soil this time of the year actually helps the seed to get good soil contact. Lawn renovation and overseeding
Be careful to keep ice-melting products off turf to avoid killing your lawn.
Along with the start of summer time comes a common lawn disease for Maryland homeowners’ lawns called brown patch. The disease is caused by several fungal species of Rhizoctonia. Rainy summers are worse, but even drier summers have brown patch disease pressure from moisture that develops from evening dew. Although tall fescue is the recommended turf variety for Maryland lawns, most cultivars are still very susceptible to this problem disease.
Always mow cool season grasses, like tall fescue and bluegrass, at a height of 3 inches. Mowing the lawn too close weakens the grass and permits many weeds to invade your lawn.
With spring gardening season right around the corner, lawn questions have been rolling into the 
Along with the start of summer time comes a common lawn disease for Maryland homeowners’ lawns called brown patch. The disease is caused by several fungal species of Rhizoctonia. Rainy summers are worse, but even drier summers have brown patch disease pressure from moisture that develops from evening dew. Although tall fescue is the recommended turf variety for Maryland lawns, most cultivars are still very susceptible to this problem disease.