Matt Fagerness, the agronomy manager at Wilco in Chehalis, grabs a handful of slow-release fertilizer prior demonstrating its use on his lawn on Tuesday afternoon at his home in Chehalis.
If you want a green lawn, a little love today will save you a lot of headaches in the future, explained Matt Fagerness.
Fagerness, the manager of Wilco Agronomy Center in Chehalis, said the single biggest mistake he sees homeowners make is reacting to problems in their lawn as they occur, rather than focusing on a maintenance schedule that would keep those problems from ever arising.
“People really try to overcomplicate lawn care but if you focus on the basics it’s pretty easy,” he said.
A basic lawn care seminar by Fagerness will be one of the several offerings during this spring’s Gardening for Everyone event, this Saturday in Washington Hall on the Centralia College campus. The day-long offering of free seminars is sponsored by the WSU Lewis County Extension’s Master Gardener Program and will include topics such as vertical gardening, fruit tree pruning and seed starting. Gardening for Everyone, offered in the fall and the spring, is one of the many outreach educational courses offered by the Master Gardener program during the year. Master Gardener program manager Art Fuller said the spring Gardening for Everyone is usually the more well-attended, gathering about 100 participants.
In general, the extension office’s programming has seen an upswing in interest from the public, Fuller noted. This year saw the highest enrollment in the Master Gardener program with 18 new recruits, up from about 10 in years past
“People are getting more interested in growing their own stuff,” Fuller said.
Fuller explained the topics for the seminars are suggested by Master Gardeners but also chosen by those who attend the twice-yearly event. Each year, Gardening for Everyone participants are given surveys to rate the classes they attend as well as suggest classes they would like to see, explained Fuller. Those comments and suggestions are tabulated and used to help to craft the next session’s class lineup.
“So it’s actually the people picking the classes,” Fuller said.
Fuller said Fagerness is their only non-Master Gardener teaching a course at Gardening for Everyone. The subject was originally suggested by a Gardening for Everyone participant and Fagerness’ presentation at last year’s spring event was so popular it was brought back this year.
Fagerness began his love of turf as a teenager in Chehalis, working for the maintenance crew of Riverside Golf Club. He earned his bachelor’s degree from WSU in agronomy (also known as crop science) with a specialty in turf management and then earned a graduate degree in the same subject. He said what drew him to the subject of turf management is the same reason many people like home improvement projects: the fruits of your labor are easy to see.
“Turf affects everybody,” Fagerness said. “Everybody likes to have a nice yard.”
Wilco is primarily a commercial agronomy center, though it does occasionally field questions from the public. Fagerness said the benefit of them versus a big box store is that their employees are trained to understand the science of what’s happening in the lawn, rather than the use of a specific product. Because certain lawn care and issues can be so site specific, he said, it’s important to work with someone who will ask the right questions. The products Wilco carries are time tested, and work specifically in this region. Fagerness said they stress the right product at the right time in the right place.
Because of the mild winter, Fagerness said, now is a fine time to fertilize lawns, although he cautioned to use a very mild blend so that you do not stimulate too much growth too soon. He said on average homeowners should probably fertilize their lawn three times each year. Moss control and lime can also be added this time of year. Fagerness said the soil in this region tends to be very acidic and adding fertilizer can also raise the acidity of the soil so he really pushes people to consider adding lime to their soil each time they fertilize to offset that acidity.
“What happens if your soil gets acidic is your turf will not grow as well but your weeds will continue to grow,” Fagerness said. “And when fertilize you may only get 50 percent of the benefit if your soil is too acidic.”
Wilco also carries fungicides and pesticides made specifically for lawns, though Fagerness said homeowners don’t often need those items if they have sown a grass that is appropriate for the Pacific Northwest. Over the extremely hot and dry summer last year, he said, many lawns saw die back but much of what died was a species called Colonial bentgrass, which is suited to coastal California and requires moderate to high maintenance and has a low tolerance for many stressors. Fagerness noted that most people didn’t even know that was the type of grass they had until it died. He said re seeding with a variety known to be well suited to Washington’s climate will help homeowners create a lawn that gives them less trouble.
But in the end, Fagerness said, what he really loves about lawns is how personal lawn care is. What you choose to do with your lawn depends on your site, your resources, and most of all your desire to work with your lawn.
“It’s completely a matter of personal preference,” Fagerness said. “If you want the best lawn on the block you can do things to make that happen but if you just want it to be good, you can do that, too.”
