MICHELLE H. wrote:
Every year, we try to do the cycle of Scotts Fertilizers on our lawn (
Crabgrass Fertilizer, Weed Control Fertilizer, Summerguard Fertilizer,
Regular Fertilizer, and Winterguard Fertilizer), and usually have no
problems.


We usually do the "Scotts Weed Control" one around Memorial Day weekend
in May, but this year my husband didn't get around doing it until a few
days ago.


Because its so late into June, we were going to just skip the "Weed
Control", and just do the "Summerguard", but we opted to still do the
"Weed Control", because our lawn was OVERRUN by clovers this year.


We usually have clover throughout the yard every year, but this year was
the WORST, and we have never seen it this bad!!!! On one side of our
house, where we use to have nice grass, the clover spread like wild, and
the whole side of the house was just one big field of clover. When you
walked on the side of the house, you weren't walking on grass, you were
walking on pure clover.


But anyway, we watered the grass to get it nice and wet ( so that the
fertilizer sticks to the weeds ), just like the bag instructs, and we
set our "drop spreader" to the 5 1/2 setting like the bag says, and
applied the fertilizer.


Well, the next morning when we went to the window, we were horrified, as
we saw that not only was the clover dead, but all our beautiful Green
grass is now a Yellow eyesore!!!!!


The clover started to turn Brown, and slowly die off, but the grass was
all Yellow the next morning!!! Now all the neighbors have nice Green
lawns, and our lawn is all Yellow.


So, did the Scotts "Weed Control" kill the lawn?? So far, we have gotten
two different opinions.


We talked to a neighbor, and he told us that "clover" is high in
Nitrogen, and that the Nitrogen from the clover, and the Nitrogen from
the fertilizer was probably to much for the grass, and it just killed
everything.


The sales guy we talked to at our local hardware store, said that we
probably put down the Scotts "Weed Control" to late in the season, and
that the high temperatures ( mid 80's in our area ), caused the "Weed
Control" to burn the lawn. According to him, he said that "Weed Control"
is suppose to be applied BEFORE June 1st???


If this is true, then why do they still have it on the shelfs!?


So is there any truth to the above two explanations?? And now the
important thing, how do we fix/repair the lawn??? According to the
"Scotts" bag, you CAN'T put down new grass seed until 4 weeks after
applying the "Weed Control"???


What if we were to spread around some new topsoil ( Topdressing I think
they call it? ) first, and then reseed?? Or do we have to wait the full
4 weeks???


We have watered the lawn "deeply" for the past couple of days, but that
didn't really help. The grass is still all Yellow.


Any help and or suggestions about what to do now would greatly be
appreciated!!!
....
Last first...

For starters, leave the fertilzers (all of them) on the shelf in the
store unless and until you've done soil testing to determine what, if
anything the soil needs.

Clover isn't "high in N", it's a legume that sets N taken in from the
air in nodules on the roots that serves as a natural source of N. Far
from a weed, clover is a very beneficial component in a lawn and will
ebb and flow in cycles depending on soil fertility. That it expanded in
coverage is generally indicative of a lack of N and certain other trace
minerals so it would have been far better in all likelihood to have
simply let it go and naturally add its N far less expensively and far
less susceptible to burning.

I've not looked at the actual product label but assuming the product you
used is a post-emergence broadleaf weed killer, no, the weed killer
itself didn't kill the grass (at least unless the application rate was
_far_ over recommended).

Most likely this product is mostly a quick-release N fertilizer and you
did simply over-fertilize for the time of year and possibly the setting
on the spreader isn't accurate or despite the setting the opening was
too large owing to a mis-operation or other failure in the mechanism.

What to do is to keep watering and perhaps it will gradually recover
from the roots rather than having actually been killed off entirely. If
that doesn't work over the next month, at this point the only real
practical alternative is to wait until cool weather and overseed at that
point and reestablish the lawn.

Again, before adding any more product of any type, I can't over
emphasize the need to take soil samples and find out what your soil
conditions actually are.

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