Scott's Turf Builder With Halts Crabgrass Preventer--Does It Inoculate Your Yard?
Written: May 28 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Encourages strong growth of bermuda and other grasses, gives crabgrass "barrier"
Cons: Fluorescent, funky orange color!
The Bottom Line: This product feeds your lawn well, and weeds disappear rather quickly. New weed growth is also discouraged.
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| sparkospunky's Full Review: Scotts Turf Builder with Halts Crabgrass Preventer |
I generally apply Scott's Turf Builder each spring to my bermuda yard, and follow it up in the fall with the winter treatment to minimize the outburst of the herbaceous garbage that inevitably invades my yard when the weather gets warm. I generally don't have much problem with crabgrass, but when I saw a newer version of Scott's Turfbuilder that was designed to kill and prevent crabgrass, I decided to give it a whirl.
I purchased the small bag of this product, containing enough fertilizer to treat 5,000 square feet of yard, which is almost the exact size of my small piece of heaven. Scott's Turf Builder With Halts Crabgrass Preventer is supposed to be applied like almost any other fertilizer--you should mow the yard, spread it evenly on a day that's not windy, and make sure it's watered in within a couple of days. The instructions on the bag further caution against applying it after the temperature regularly reaches 80 degrees, which means that in my part of the country it should be applied no later than April.
I selected a sunny, calm day in mid-April to apply Scott's Turf Builder With Halts Crabgrass Preventer. When I opened the bag, I noticed that the fertilizer was a curious orange color, which I guess comes from the collection of chemicals contained in the product which are supposed to attack and prevent crabgrass. I proceeded to broadcast the fertilizer on my newly mown yard, and sat back to wait for the rain which had been forecast for the next two days. And rain it did--my area received three nice steady spring showers over that period which dumped over an inch and a half of precipitation on my newly treated lawn, saving me the time and trouble of hooking up my sprinklers and watering the fertilizer in myself.
Just like the original Turf Builder, this product literally made my bermuda jump. Within a week my grass became thick and green, (and not to mention, tall!), and I had to mow it. I'm now mowing it about every four days, so the fertilizer continues to feed my yard. I've noticed that the herbaceous garbage and the crabgrass seemed to be a little less after each mowing, and as of the date of this writing, almost a month and a half after the application, they're virtually non-existent, giving me a lush bermuda carpet with no intruders lurking there.
As far as doing away with unwanted vegetation, I'm not so sure that this product is any better than the original Turf Builder. Bermuda is a wildly aggressive grass, and if it's properly fertilized, it will "choke out" almost anything not bermuda. So whether or not Scott's Turf Builder With Halts Crabgrass Preventer is quicker to kill weeds than the original Turf Builder is a question I can't answer.
One of the claims of this product is that it's supposed to create a "barrier" of sorts to prevent crabgrass and other weeds from returning to your yard for an extended period of time. I can state with certainty that there has been no new growth in my yard since I applied this product, and I'll be watching it closely over the next few months for any unwanted intruders.
My yard looks nice since I applied Scott's Turf Builder With Halts Crabgrass Preventer--I hope it delivers the "inoculation" that's apparently it's strongest selling point. So far it looks like it does.
Thanks for reading.
Recommended:
Yes
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