Fort Smith Lawn Care | Is Weed Killer Bad For Pets?

Most people and lawn companies use weed killer and herbicides liberally, spraying weeds growing in the cracks of driveways, walkways, and parking lots, and preventing weeds in flower beds and landscaping. Sometimes people will also spray around trees and buildings and other obstacles to eliminate the need for weedeating. One question we get asked from time to time is whether or not these chemicals will hurt their pets. Usually these furry friends are like part of the family, so it would be a shame to unwittingly harm one with spraying chemicals unaware. Because we have pets of our own, we can definitely relate to the concern and want to provide some clarity to this worrisome topic.

These chemicals certainly could be harmful if you use them irresponsibly. If for some reason you were to spray any of these herbicides and weed killers directly on or around your pet and give them direct exposure, it would definitely not be healthy. Your pet could experience sickness, vomiting, and perhaps more longterm effects.

However for the most part, most of these brands of chemicals are considered safe to use around your pets as long as you can keep the pets from the area until it dries. We would recommend taking your pet inside or keeping them in a different part of the your yard while you are applying these chemicals. Once they dry your pet should be safe.

There are some products though that are altogether unsafe for use around your pets. Products like snail and slug bait using metaldehyde, as well as any pesticides that include disulfoton, this is a chemical that has mostly been pulled off the market, but is still found in some stores. It is found sometimes in rose care products. Avoid these chemicals absolutely to protect your pet. Especially because these products attract pets and dogs will eat as much as they can get a hold of. Sometimes they are mixed with fertilizers like bone meal and blood meal, making it even more appealing to canines.

So please take care to know what product you’re using and what is in it before you spray around animals. We hope this has helped give some enlightenment to keeping man’s best friend and other furry companions safe from harmful use of chemicals. You may also consider some natural home remedies for weed killers if you’re worried about any chemical exposure to your pets.

Herbicides can be tricky to use; it’s not always easy to know the right mixture, and the right amount to apply to kill what you want and not hurt other plants around it. You can always save yourself some risk and trouble, and hire the professionals here at Cutting Edge Lawn Care to take care of all things lawn care and landscaping.

Fort Smith Lawn Care | What are the Dangers of Over Mowing?

Have you ever heard of a burnt lawn? We’re not talking about a burn from a fire, or a carpet burn from when you put in hardwood floors and drug the old carpet to the street; we’re talking about lawn burn from mowing too often and/or too short. Most people burn their lawn without actually knowing it’s happening. That’s why we think this is crucial information for the community to know.

There are a multiple ways burning can happen to your lawn. One of the most common causes is when people continuously mow their lawn too short and scalp it. Now this is distinguishing from the spring scalping we’ve talked about in a previous article. A beginning of the season scalping is great to rid your yard of dead grass that’s blocking the sun from the new growth early on. However once the grass is green and growing, it is not good and healthy to scalp it, because you’re hindering the photosynthesis. Grass soaks in the sun through the blades, so the more blade there is, the more sun it absorbs. If you scalp a good healthy yard, you’ve taken it’s ability to take in the vital sunlight. That’s why you can’t cut it too short, or too often. Though lawns need to be mowed, if you mow it too often—even if it’s not scalped—it can still keep it from taking in enough sunlight.

Another cause that comes from some even slight inexperience is mowing with dull lawn mower blades. As we have also talked about in a previous article, the dangers of mowing with dull blades is more than you would think. Not only does it damage the blades by tearing them instead of cutting them cleanly, but the damage it causes can also impede the blades ability to soak in the sun, causing yard burn yet again.

There’s so many things to keep in mind when taking care of your lawn and landscaping. It’s time to skip the headache and time wasted on faulty technique and just hire the professionals at Cutting Edge Lawn Care.

Fort Smith Lawn Care | Does Mulch Color Matter?

When it comes time to put down new fresh mulch, whether it’s for your spring cleaning, sprucing up in the fall, or any time of year, you’ll be faced with many mulch types and color. We’ll tackle what type of mulch is best to use another time, but today, lets talk about color. Here at Cutting Edge, we’re big believers in not just knowing “what” but knowing “why”. So lets start with why colored mulch exists and what it’s actual use is.

Obviously, this offers options if you’re bored with regular natural brown mulch. It’s also about longer lasting color, it doesn’t just add color, it locks in the color longer. Any color mulch, once under the influence of the elements for so long, will eventually fade to a dull greyish color. Which isn’t bad, if you prefer a natural look. But mulch isn’t cheap, so you want it to last as long as possible, and get the most for your money.

Now as far as what color to choose, it depends on what your goal is. if you want to be subtle, then you’d want to go for a natural or brown color mulch, then it’s not as much of a pop or statement. But if you want to make a statement, and add color to your landscaping, and if you’re proud of your landscaping and house, then you may want to draw attention to it; which means you would absolutely want a pop of color to draw the eye. At this point, we would suggest going off the color of your house. If you have a darker house, with brown colors, then we would discourage using a dark brown, and sometimes black; it would be a good time to go with a pop of red, or maybe even the natural color, to give some light to the landscape.

On the flip side, if you have a red brick house, it may not be best choice to go with red mulch. if your house is bright and colorful, maybe it would be best to give it a darker contrast, and go with dark brown or black. On a side note, there’s also a myth that roaches hate red mulch. So if you’re having roach troubles, you may try red, and see if you notice a difference.

In the end, it comes down to what you want. However you want your house landscaping to look, we can help you out with it. We have access to all the best deals, and varieties. So give us a call when you’re interested in some color, and we’ll give you a free consultation and estimate. Call the experts at Cutting Edge!

Fort Smith Lawn Care | Is it ok to Mow Right After the Rain?

We get it, sometimes the rain is relentless and there’s nothing you can do about it. Especially in Arkansas, in May. Sometimes you don’t have a choice, cause it’s been raining for two weeks straight and the grass has been growing non stop, and it’s not gonna dry out before the next two weeks of rain, so you gotta do what you gotta do. But if you can help it at all, should you mow right after it rains and before the ground dries?

No. Not if you care about your yard and your lawn mower. If you have a choice, here are the reasons you should abstain from lawn mowing right after the rain:

1. Ruts. When it rains and the ground is soft and muddy, when you drive a lawn mower across it, you’re going get make ruts, or maybe even get stuck and create a huge mess, and it’s going to take a while for your yard to recover from that.

2. Clumps. Maybe the ground is firm enough to not get stuck, or maybe you break out your push mower. It’s still a bad idea, because the grass is soaked, and when the lawn mower spits out the grass clippings, it’s going to be spewing hideous clumps of grass all over your yard. We haven’t run across a customer who likes this yet.

3. You’re going to hurt your lawn mower. You may think, that you’ll just put your mulch plate on so it’s not spitting out all the grass clumps. Well this can be very harmful for your lawn mower, because all those clumps are staying in the deck, and turning into a giant clump that’s dulling your blades enormously, not to mention bogging your engine down, and sometimes, will break your belt because of the strain. We’ve done it all, none of it is good or fun.

4. Stains. When these clumps are laying all over the ground and you’re running over them with your lawn mower, the tread in your wheels and tires are filling with this wet grass. When you drive or roll across your driveways, sidewalks and streets, you’re going to smear grass and stains all over them, and it’s not easy to clean up.

These are the main reasons we found to avoid lawn mowing directly after the rain. We hope this helps you avoid messing up your own lawn and equipment, as well as provide some understanding why Lawn care services want to wait till the yard dries before providing service. We have your lawn and interests in mind.

If you’re lawn care company is not mindful of your lawn and messing it up, call the professionals here at Cutting Edge Lawn Care to get your best lawn now!

Fort Smith Lawn Care | Tips for Mowing Zoysia

Lawn mowing season is fast approaching in Fort Smith, and at Cutting Edge Lawn Care, we’re very excited. We wanted to drop a few quick tips to keep in mind when mowing and caring for the most tricky grass around: Zoysia

Zoysia is a beautiful, lush, luxurious looking grass, unless you mess up when it’s time to start mowing. Common mistakes when it comes to mowing zoysia are: Mowing too short, Mowing too high, not bagging when needed, not scalping in the spring, creating ruts with the mower. Here are some tips to avoid these mistakes.

Mowing too low, and Mowing too high. It is more harmful to mow it too low, because zoysia is slow to recover, but if you let it grow too long, and keep it too high, it can also not be as healthy as it should. The best height for Zoysia is between 2.5” to 4”.

You don’t always have to bag Zoysia, but better safe than sorry. Thatch build up is the enemy of Zoysia, and cutting too many clippings without bagging, is the quickest way to create it.

Ruts can be created when you always mow in the same pattern. With a Zoysia lawn, the soil is usually softer so running even a push mower over the same path week after week creates noticeable unevenness which can result in scalping and eventually ruts.

As we wrote in one of our first articles, it is very important to actually scalp zoysia in the spring when it starts to turn green. Even though scalping in the summer can be deadly, in the spring, when it starts to turn green but before it’s very tall, it’s very helpful to cut away the old dead grass and bag it, so that it doesn’t compact under the new grass and create thatch.

We hope you find these tips helpful and informative for this lawn mowing season. And as always, remember the easiest way to take care of your lawn is to hire a professional lawn mowing service. Of course, we prefer you hire Cutting Edge Lawn Care.

Fort Smith Lawn Care | Are Rocks Better Than Mulch?

When Spring cleaning comes around, people are trimming hedges, trimming monkey grass, pruning crepe myrtles, and refreshing mulch, and we get the same question every year. People get tired of refreshing the mulch and having it wash away and blow out into the yard. So they ask, “should I switch to rock?”

Our response is always the same, whatever you want, we will get you. But if you want our input, we would almost always prefer to bring in mulch than rock, and it’s not because we make more money, quite the opposite actually. In the long run mulch usually makes everyone’s life easier. It has be refreshed once or twice a year because it decomposes and loses color, and rock doesn’t. Rock is more permanent which is what seems to be the selling point in the short run. But that means you’re locked in, and should you ever change your mind it’s going to cost you much more time and effort to remove it yourself and much more money to have someone do it for you. Not to mention it is much more expensive than mulch to have applied as well.

If you’re using the typical one inch river rock like most do, then it can still wash into the yard with heavy rain, and get blown out by leaf blowers. But the rock isn’t going to decompose and the mulch will.

If you know you never want to touch mulch again then rock is your best option, certainly better than rubber mulch. But it will cost you more upfront, and down the road should you ever need a change. And it is absolutely going to be more time and elbow grease than you want to expend on your Saturday afternoon, so rock or mulch, call Cutting Edge to bring it in for you!