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Your complete guide for seasonal landscaping work. Select your zone and the current season to instantly filter the content to match your specific job requirements.
Nothing in this guide applies to that combination yet.
Turf Section
Turf nutrition & seed selection
What to seed, at what rate, and the two granulars that feed and prevent in one pass
Seed selection comes down to two things: how much sun the area gets, and what the turf has to survive once it's up. A ball field takes Premium Athletic, a bluegrass and ryegrass blend chosen for wear tolerance rather than color. A shaded side yard takes Fairlawn Shade, a mix built to hold in light to medium shade. Swapping the two gives you predictable results, since the appearance mix tears out along the high-traffic lanes within a season and the wear mix never fills in properly under a canopy.
Every bag lists two rates, one for a new lawn and one for overseeding, where the overseeding rate is roughly half. Overseeding assumes there's already a living stand carrying most of the coverage, so the seed you're adding only has to fill the gaps between existing plants. Bare soil has no stand to fill in around, which is why it takes the heavier rate. A common mistake we see is the lighter rate going down on ground that needed the heavier one, and that produces a thin, patchy stand you'll be reseeding at your own cost.
| Mix | Built for | New lawn | Overseed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fairlawn Blue and Rye | Quick establishment on a permanent lawn | 5 lb | 2.5 lb |
| Best of Blues | 100% Kentucky bluegrass, full sun, appearance first | 3 lb | 1.5 lb |
| Fresh Start Elite | 75/25 bluegrass and rye, holds density at low mowing heights | 3 to 4 lb | — |
| Turf Type Tall Fescue | Low maintenance once it's established | 7 to 8 lb | 4 lb |
| Grid Iron | 80/10/10 fescue blend, full sun through light shade | 8 to 10 lb | — |
| Premium Athletic | Cleats, compaction and tearing | 4 to 5 lb | 2 to 2.5 lb |
| Fairlawn Shade | Light to medium shade | 6 lb | 3 lb |
| No Mow | Fine fescue, mown twice a year | 6 lb | — |
| Roadside | Ditch banks and shoulders, holds against erosion | 5 lb | — |
Fairlawn Shade holds in light to medium shade without heavy fertilization, which keeps its maintenance cost down over the life of the contract. Water is the harder part. Shade under mature trees usually means the turf is drawing from the same soil as an established root system that reaches deeper and takes moisture first, so the grass comes up short even in a season with normal rainfall. Plan on running irrigation to those areas if you want the stand to hold through midsummer.
A soil probe pulls a 12-inch core for a lab sample without digging a hole in a client's turf. The 21-inch chromoly handles normal ground, the 33-inch adds a welded step so you can drive it with your boot through compacted turf, and the 36-inch stainless is the one for wet or corrosive soil. The Kelway HB2 reads pH from 3.5 to 8 along with soil moisture, accurate to about 0.2 pH in acidic ground. It isn't built for soils above 7.5 pH, so on alkaline ground send the sample out instead.
We stock the sampling tools and the field meters. The lab report comes from your extension service, and lime, gypsum and bulk amendment come from a bulk supplier rather than from us.
Feeding and preventing on the same visit
Two of the products here do both jobs in a single pass, though they belong to opposite ends of the year.
21-22-4 with Mesotrione contains 0.08% mesotrione. Most pre-emergent chemistry works by preventing seed from establishing, and it can't distinguish between crabgrass seed and the turf seed you spread an hour earlier, which is why you normally have to schedule seeding and pre-emerging several weeks apart. Mesotrione behaves differently, since turf seed germinates through it. That lets you seed and apply pre-emergent on the same spring visit without one job canceling out the other.
GrowStar 18-0-3 XCU pairs 0.29% prodiamine with a slow-release coating that feeds for about ten weeks. The reason it sits on the fall schedule rather than the spring one is poa annua, which heads its controlled list and germinates as soil cools in fall. Applying it in spring would put the prodiamine down months ahead of the weed it was bought to stop.
Seeding windows
Late summer beats spring for cool-season turf because it puts warm soil, dependable moisture and low weed pressure in the same few weeks. Spring seeding has to share the calendar with crabgrass germination, and the stand gets only a couple of months to root before summer heat arrives.
Where you land inside that window matters more than most schedules assume. Every week of delay past the optimum adds two to four weeks to how long the turf needs to mature, because germination and growth both slow as the soil cools. A stand seeded three weeks late can miss mowing height entirely before growth stops for the year, which leaves the client looking at bare ground through the winter.
| Zone | What you're seeding | Window |
|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 | Cool-season | Mid-August into mid-September |
| 6 to 7 | Either, depending on the stand | Cool-season late August into early October; warm-season mid-May into June |
| 8 to 9 | Mostly warm-season | Mid-May into June, once soil holds above 65°F |
| 10 to 11 | Warm-season | Late spring into early summer |
Tall fescue comes off the calendar earlier than bluegrass. Its seedlings take longer to develop cold hardiness, so mid-September is the practical cutoff even in years when bluegrass can still go down. Plan Turf Type Tall Fescue jobs for the front half of the window and leave the back half for bluegrass work.
Germination runs best with soil between 50 and 70°F, and you take that reading about an inch down (University of Maryland Extension). A soil thermometer answers that in about a minute, which is worth more than a date on a schedule when August runs hot or cool.
Seed that hasn't germinated before winter arrives dies, and Kentucky bluegrass is the only exception. That changes what you reach for at the back edge of the window. Best of Blues is the one mix on this page that's entirely bluegrass, so seed sitting ungerminated in late October has a chance there that it wouldn't have in a fescue or rye mix.
Late seeding carries a second cost that shows up the following spring. Winter annual weeds, poa annua in particular, give fall-seeded turf more trouble than late-summer-seeded turf. A September 30 seeding tends to buy you a poa annua problem in March on top of a thinner stand, and you can't pre-emerge your way out of it without killing the seed you just paid for.
Phosphorus restrictions
Statewide phosphorus limits on turf fertilizer cover much of the upper Midwest, the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic, including Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine, Maryland, Virginia and Washington. Nearly all of them carve out an exemption for establishing new turf by seed or sod, and a second for cases where a soil test documents a deficiency. That makes the soil test the paperwork behind the exemption as much as the agronomy behind the decision, which is one reason a probe earns its keep on commercial accounts. Setback distances from water and licensing requirements differ by state, so confirm yours before quoting a maintenance feeding program.
Zones 6 and 7
Cool-season and warm-season turf overlap here, sometimes on neighboring properties. The window you're working to depends on which one is in the ground rather than on the zone number, so identify the stand before you put the job on the schedule. Cool-season lawns follow the late-summer calendar. Bermudagrass and zoysia wait for late spring, and seeding them on a cool-season timeline wastes the bag.
Summer fertilizer blackouts
Many Florida counties prohibit applying any fertilizer containing nitrogen or phosphorus from June 1 through September 30, which removes four months from the middle of the growing season. Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Manatee all run that window, and several counties add a year-round phosphorus restriction on top of it. A feeding program has to load the turf before June 1 and carry it through, which puts the weight on slow-release product rather than on application frequency. These are county ordinances rather than state law, so verify the county you're working in.
Which one to buy
If you're overseeding and applying pre-emergent on the same visit, 21-22-4 with Mesotrione is the only product here that lets you do both, and that alone makes it worth keeping on the truck through spring.
Premium Athletic is chosen for wear tolerance rather than appearance, which makes it the right mix for ball fields, park turf, and anything else that takes cleats or steady foot traffic.
Grid Iron covers full sun through light shade in one mix, so a property with exposure that changes from front to back only needs a single bag rather than two.
No Mow suits contracts priced by the visit rather than by appearance, since mowing twice a year is the entire reason to plant it. Walk the client through that tradeoff before you spec it, because the lawn will look shaggier than what they're used to seeing.
Bedprep Section
Pruning, planting & bed prep
Edging that survives a winter, and the six-month lead time on moving established stock
Crews setting edging too shallow, or skipping the anchoring stakes, cause most of the lift you see after a winter. Frost heave needs three things at once: fine-grained soil that holds water, moisture available to feed it, and cold reaching far enough down to freeze that moisture. A lip-style profile, steel anchoring stakes and a trench cut to a consistent depth will prevent most of it.
Permaloc CleanLine is aluminum with an anodized finish bonded into the metal rather than painted on, so trimmer contact and years of sun won't take it back to bare metal. COLMET QuickLock is 12-gauge steel, and its V-stakes lock in below the top of the run, so the stakes hold the edging down instead of the edging holding itself. Leonard Lumber Edge is recycled HDPE at 3/4 inch thick with no sharp exposed edge, which is worth more than extra service life on a property with children or steady foot traffic. Dimex No-Dig sets without a trench, so it goes in over surface tree roots and tight against a driveway where digging isn't an option.
| Edging | Material | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Permaloc CleanLine | Aluminum | The line has to stay true for years and take sun |
| COLMET QuickLock | 12-gauge steel | Ground that moves, plus mower and trimmer contact |
| Leonard Lumber Edge | Recycled HDPE | Foot traffic, or anywhere exposed metal is a liability |
| Dimex No-Dig | Plastic | Tree roots, pavement, anywhere a trench isn't possible |
Cutting the line
The Leonard 9-inch half moon edger is one welded piece with a high-carbon blade that cuts through roots instead of skipping off them, and for a route with a few beds per property that's the whole job. The ECHO BRD-2620 bed redefiner runs a carbide-tipped replaceable blade and cuts about seven times faster than a spade, which a crew running several hundred feet a week makes back in labor inside a season.
Lifting established plants
A drain spade is what you want for moving a shrub or a small tree. The blade measures 5-3/4 inches across and 16 inches deep, so it cuts a narrower root ball than a standard spade and lets you work in close without disturbing what's staying. Less soil comes out and less backfill goes in, and you're not paying to haul the difference. If you're planting into heavy clay, drainage decides whether any of it establishes, and what actually works in clay soil is a longer conversation than this section can hold.
Transplanting and bed work windows
Moving an established plant takes two conditions at once: the plant dormant, and the ground diggable. In colder zones the ground freezes solid before winter is over, which cuts the window in half and puts it either side of the freeze. In warmer zones the limit is the plant, since dormancy gets shallower as winters get milder.
| Zone | Window | What closes it |
|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 | After leaf drop until the ground freezes, then again after spring thaw before buds break | Frozen ground |
| 6 to 7 | Roughly November through March | Dormancy |
| 8 to 9 | Roughly November through March, with soil often warm enough to keep roots growing all winter | Dormancy |
| 10 to 11 | The coolest weeks of the year | Plants may never go fully dormant |
Within the fall window, conifers and hardwoods move on different schedules. Conifers do better early, from late August into September, while hardwoods move better once they're fully dormant. Anything going bare-root should wait for early spring.
Root pruning has a six-month lead time. Root prune in March for a plant you're moving in October or November, and in October for one you're moving in March (Clemson HGIC). Cutting the roots the same week you dig gives up most of the benefit, because the whole point is to let new feeder roots form inside the future root ball while the plant is still in the ground. If you quote a job without building in that lead time, you either slip a season or move a plant carrying half the root system it should have.
Short seasons split the window
The transplant window here falls either side of the freeze, and root pruning has to be scheduled against whichever half you plan to use. A plant moving in October gets root pruned the previous March, so the decision lands seven months ahead of the work and often while the ground is still frozen. Put it in the contract rather than raising it at a spring walkthrough.
Fall beats spring here
Soil often stays warm enough through winter to keep roots growing, which makes a fall move stronger than a spring one. A tree planted in October has months of root establishment behind it before its first summer, while the same tree planted in April goes into heat with almost none.
Which one to buy
Permaloc CleanLine is the spec for a bed line that has to look the same in ten years, and the anodized finish is why it still looks new after a few seasons of trimmer contact.
On ground you know moves, COLMET QuickLock is the safer buy, since the stakes are doing the work that keeps the run down.
Dimex No-Dig is the only option here for edging a bed ringed with surface roots, since trenching through the root zone can kill the tree you're working around.
Felco 2 is the pruner to standardize a crew on. Every part is replaceable, so a bent blade or a tired spring is a parts order instead of a new tool.
Pre-Emergent Section
Pre-emergent & weed prevention
The section where a two-week miss costs you the season
A pre-emergent applied in March will stop the grass seed you put down in April. Prodiamine and dithiopyr both kill seedlings at germination by interrupting cell division, and that works on bluegrass and fescue seedlings the same way it works on crabgrass. The Dimension label puts six to eight weeks between an application and any overseeding, which means a spring pre-emergent program and a spring repair seeding program can't run on the same turf in the same season.
Mesotrione is the one active ingredient here that turf seed germinates through, which lets 21-22-4 with Mesotrione go down on the same visit as the seed. Crews not running mesotrione have two workable options. Move the repair seeding to late summer and keep the spring program clear, or leave the seeded areas out of the spring application and spot-treat them with a post-emergent once the new grass has been mowed a couple of times.
Timing
Crabgrass germinates on soil temperature rather than on a date, so the week that's right in one county runs three weeks early in the next. Seeds start moving once the upper inch of soil holds 55 to 58°F at daybreak for four to five consecutive days, assuming there's moisture in the ground (Penn State Extension). We cover how that shifts by region, and how to take the reading, in our pre-emergent soil temperature guide.
Fall runs on the opposite logic. Poa annua germinates as soil cools, beginning once it drops below about 70°F and continuing for the following two to three months (University of Tennessee Extension). A fall application has to be down before the soil reaches that point, and GrowStar 18-0-3 XCU is built for that pass.
Both thresholds are readings, not dates. A soil thermometer with a 7-inch stainless stem reads 0 to 220°F, comes with a probe sheath that survives a truck box, and costs less than a bag of seed. It's the difference between scheduling an application and guessing at one.
Choosing the chemistry
| Product | Active | Buy it for |
|---|---|---|
| Dimension .25G | Dithiopyr .25% | Pre and post emergence both, so a late application still catches crabgrass that's already up |
| GrowStar 18-0-3 XCU | 0.29% prodiamine | Fall poa annua, with ten weeks of slow-release feeding in the same pass |
| 21-22-4 with Mesotrione | 0.08% mesotrione | Seeding and preventing on one visit |
| Tricept 2.5 DG | 2% trifluralin, 0.5% isoxaben | Ornamental beds, labeled for more than 600 species |
| Grass Guard 9-0-0 | Corn gluten meal | Accounts specifying a natural program |
Tricept is a bed product and the rest are turf products. Check the labeled site list before you load the spreader, because a bed pre-emergent run across turf and a turf pre-emergent run through a planting bed both end the same way.
Grass Guard runs on corn gluten meal and contains no animal ingredients, which gets it onto organic-program properties. The rate is the tradeoff. At 10 to 12.5 lb per 1,000 sq ft it takes several times the material of a synthetic, so quote those jobs on bag count.
Preventing without chemistry
Some sites won't take a pre-emergent, whether that's a client policy, a water restriction, or a bed full of young stock you don't want to risk. Landscape fabric at 5 oz blocks close to 99% of sunlight and carries gold stripes every 12 inches, so plant spacing comes off the fabric rather than a tape measure. WeedGuard Plus circles and the biodegradable 24-inch tree rings suppress weeds at the trunk without putting chemistry near young bark, and the biodegradable version breaks down in place so nobody has to return to pull it. Bio360 mulch film does the same for a bed, while the black embossed film is the one to use when it needs to hold position on slope and last the full season.
One window, two jobs
The spring pre-emergent window and the spring repair-seeding window are the same three or four weeks here, so both programs can't run on the same turf. Move repair seeding to late summer and keep spring clear for prevention, or run mesotrione and do both in one visit. Make that call when you build the schedule rather than when the crew is already on the property.
One application won't hold the season
Where the season runs long and crabgrass pressure is heavy, a second pre-emergent pass six to eight weeks after the first is standard. Most labels cap the annual total rather than the individual application, so a split program means running both passes at reduced rates rather than a full rate twice. Read the annual maximum on the label before you plan the second pass.
Warmer zones
Soil cools later in fall, which moves the poa annua window back rather than shortening it. A common mistake we see is treating the fall pass as optional and getting to it after the germination window has already opened.
Which one to buy
If there's any chance of missing the window, buy for post-emergence activity. Dithiopyr keeps working on crabgrass that has already germinated, so Dimension .25G forgives a late start across a full route. Shipping restrictions keep it out of roughly two dozen states, so confirm it reaches yours before building a season around it. Where it doesn't ship, mesotrione is the other active on this page labeled for both pre and post emergence.
If you're repair seeding this spring, 21-22-4 with Mesotrione is the only product here that lets both jobs happen on one visit.
For fall poa annua, GrowStar 18-0-3 XCU puts the prodiamine and ten weeks of feeding down together, which turns two trips into one on every property you manage.
Gear Section
Application & spreading gear
Property size, bed layout and grade drive every choice here
A broadcast spreader throws material in an arc that extends several feet on both sides of the machine. That covers open turf quickly, and it also means the application doesn't stop where the turf stops. On a property with planting beds running along every walk, a broadcast pattern lands fertilizer and pre-emergent in the beds, and a pre-emergent labeled for turf can damage ornamentals it was never meant to touch. Whoever maintains those beds finds out about it a few weeks later.
A drop spreader releases material straight down between its wheels and nowhere else, so you can run a pass tight against a bed line without anything crossing it. The cost of that control is width. A drop spreader covers 18 to 36 inches per pass while a broadcast covers several feet, so a crew doing large open lawns with a drop spreader spends the difference in labor hours. Most routes end up carrying both machines.
Grade is worth thinking about before the purchase rather than after. A tow-behind spreader loaded with 175 pounds of pelleted material carries that weight high and to the rear, and on a side slope the load works against you. The Agri-Fab 175 is built low to the ground for that reason, which makes it the tow spreader to specify on properties with real grade changes rather than flat commercial turf.
Sizing the machine to the route
| Machine | Capacity | Fits |
|---|---|---|
| Earthway hand spreader | Small | Repair patches and strips too small to justify wheeling anything |
| Leonard 50 lb broadcast | 50 lb | Small properties, walks and entryways |
| Leonard Professional broadcast | 70 lb | Daily commercial route work, with a lockable control lever so it can't dump in transit |
| Earthway FLEX SELECT | 80 lb | Crews running several products, since the output trays swap out instead of fighting a fixed port |
| Spyker drop | 120 lb | Bed-adjacent work, with hopper sections giving 18 or 36 inches from one machine |
| Gandy drop | 120 lb | The same work, with a stainless rate gate that pulls out with no tools |
| Agri-Fab tow drop | 175 lb | Acreage and grades |
The Gandy's rate gate deserves more attention than a spec line usually gets. Fertilizer and ice melt left sitting in a hopper overnight draw moisture and cake against the gate, and when clearing that means finding a wrench, somebody postpones it until the machine meters badly enough to show in the turf.
Treating a patch instead of a property
The Spred-Rite G and the Fertil Five meter granular product through a hand-held wand, and nothing else in the catalog does that job. When a property has a few square yards of a problem, running a broadcast spreader across the entire lawn to reach it wastes material and puts chemistry on ground that never needed any. A wand applicator lets a crew treat the actual patch, which costs less in product and is far easier to explain if a client asks what went down and where.
Sprayers
Whether you want a diaphragm pump or a piston pump depends on what you plan to run through it. Wettable powders carry fine abrasive particles in suspension, and those particles grind against the seals of a piston pump on every stroke. A diaphragm pump moves them through without the same wear, which is why the Solo 475 diaphragm is the sprayer for anyone applying wettable powder formulations with any regularity. A piston pump reaches higher pressure and holds it more steadily, so it's the better choice for liquid concentrates where consistent pressure matters more than particle tolerance.
The Solo Professional piston sprayer has a regulator with fixed stops at 15, 30 and 45 psi. Without a regulator, output pressure depends on how hard and how often the operator pumps, and that drifts over the course of an afternoon. A rate calibrated on the first property of the day won't be the rate going down on the fourth.
Battery sprayers come down to which batteries your crew already charges. The FlowZone Cyclone 3 accepts FlowZone, DeWalt and Milwaukee packs through universal adapters, so a shop already invested in one of those platforms doesn't add another charger and another battery inventory to keep track of. For crews staying with manual pumps, the Field King Max houses its pump inside the tank, so there's no external seal to leak down your back over a long afternoon, and the harness carries genuine lumbar support rather than a pair of straps.
Tank sizing, nozzle selection and wand length are all covered properly in our sprayer buying guide.
Moving the material
Leonard poly tray wheelbarrows come in 6, 8 and 10 cubic foot trays on an undercarriage rated to support 500 pounds. Tread is a real decision rather than a default. The extra wide low profile tread spreads the load and leaves fewer marks crossing finished turf, which matters on properties where somebody is looking at the lawn between the truck and the beds. The #12 aluminum scoop weighs roughly 30% less than a steel scoop of the same size and won't rust, so it's the one to keep on the truck for loading hoppers season after season.
Which one to buy
On a route with planting beds along the walks, buy the drop spreader first and add a broadcast for open turf later. Working the other way around means somebody is cleaning fertilizer out of perennial beds, and it won't be the person who chose the spreader.
If wettable powders are part of your program at all, buy the Solo 475 diaphragm. A replacement piston pump costs more than the gap between the two sprayers, and you'll replace it sooner than you expect.
For a shop already running DeWalt or Milwaukee tools, the FlowZone Cyclone 3 is the backpack that works with the batteries already sitting on the charger.
Post-Emergent Section
Post-emergent & weed control
What you're killing, and what has to grow there afterward
Post-emergent chemistry sorts by what you're killing and by what has to grow there afterward. Roundup QuikPRO SC combines glyphosate and diquat with indaziflam, so it burns existing growth down within hours and then holds the ground against new germination for up to six months. On a fence line or a gravel yard, that residual is the reason to buy it. On a bed getting replanted in six weeks, it will stop the new plants from establishing. Roundup ProMax is 48.7% glyphosate with no soil residual, which makes it the one for anywhere new growth is part of the plan.
Turf weeds
Selective broadleaf herbicides treat a lawn without replacing it. The three worth stocking differ mainly in the conditions they tolerate.
T-Zone SE works between 50 and 85°F, shows visible activity within hours and finishes the weed in 7 to 14 days. The label names cool-season turf. It underperforms outside that temperature range, which puts it in spring and fall rather than midsummer.
Super Trimec combines 2,4-D with 2,4-DP and dicamba, and the label claims it holds through a sudden rain or a swing in temperature. That suits shoulder-season work when the forecast is unreliable. At 1.5 tablespoons per 1,000 square feet it mixes small enough for spot treatment.
Speed Zone adds carfentrazone to a 2,4-D, mecoprop-p and dicamba base. The label covers cool-season turf plus bermudagrass and zoysiagrass, so one bottle handles properties on both sides of the transition.
Torocity is 40% mesotrione, labeled for more than 45 species including crabgrass, yellow nutsedge and bentgrass. It works pre and post emergence, and the 8 oz size means a crew with two small properties doesn't have to buy a gallon.
Grass growing in a bed
Killing grass in an ornamental bed usually means killing what's planted around it. Fusilade II is 24.5% fluazifop-P-butyl and sprays over the top of ornamentals without harming them, because it controls grasses and leaves everything else alone. Broadleaf weeds and sedges in the same bed need a second product or a hand weeder.
Low-risk programs
Schools, municipal contracts and clients who ask all rule out conventional chemistry. Two products cover most of that work.
Fiesta is 26.52% iron HEDTA. Broadleaf plants take up more iron than grasses do, and at this concentration that difference kills the weed and leaves the turf. The mechanism is simple enough to explain in a driveway conversation with a client asking why you aren't spraying what the last company sprayed.
Finalsan is 22.10% ammoniated soap of fatty acids and OMRI listed. It dehydrates what it contacts and doesn't translocate into roots, so it burns down annual weeds while perennial roots survive to send up new growth. It won't damage mature woody bark, which makes it usable tight against trunks where glyphosate isn't. Plan on repeat applications.
Mechanical removal
A stirrup hoe cuts on the push and the pull, and the 7-inch blade is the landscaper size. The blade is a replaceable wear part, so you sharpen the tool rather than retire it. A Cape Cod weeder reaches into paver and stone joints where nothing else fits. The Truper V-notched lawn weeder pulls individual turf weeds root and all from a standing position, which is how you keep spring-seeded areas clean while they're still too young to spray.
Cool-season turf
T-Zone and Speed Zone both work inside a temperature window rather than a date range. Shorter seasons mean fewer usable spray days, which pushes toward Super Trimec when the weather won't cooperate.
Buy for frequency, not residual
A long season produces repeat weed flushes rather than one cycle, so the purchasing pattern changes. Smaller quantities bought more often beat one heavy order that sits on a shelf degrading before the last flush arrives. Speed Zone is also the only product here labeled for bermudagrass and zoysiagrass alongside cool-season grass, which matters on mixed properties.
Which one to buy
Keep Roundup ProMax as the standard non-selective and hold QuikPRO SC for fence lines, gravel and anywhere nothing is going back in this season.
For selective turf work on a single product, Speed Zone covers the widest range of grass types.
Near young trunks or on an organic program, Finalsan is the burndown that won't harm bark, provided you're treating annuals rather than expecting a perennial to stay down.
Tree Care Section
Tree care & arborist supplies
Guards, staking, dormant brush chemistry, and the one place this guide won't pick for you
Premium mesh tree guards last five to six years and test about 20% stronger. Commercial guards last four to five years and cost up to 40% less. Municipal plantings and rental properties replace guards on a cycle anyway, so Commercial does that work and the savings are real across a few hundred trees. A specimen tree at a client's entrance is where Premium earns back its price, because one guard failure means bark damage on a tree the client will expect you to replace.
Trunk shield protectors install once at planting and stay, which takes the wrap-and-unwrap visit off a crew's fall and spring schedule. Biodegradable spiral guards break down in place, so a remote planting gets protection with no removal trip on the books two years out.
Shelters for young stock
Max Grow Tubes are vented at the top and closed at the bottom, so a seedling gets airflow while herbicide overspray stays outside the tube. As the trunk gains caliper the tube splits along a razor line, and nobody has to come cut it off. Tree Pro's slit design bleeds heat out through the slit itself, which suits open sites where summer sun would cook a seedling inside a sealed tube.
Staking and ties
Wire run through a length of garden hose still turns up on new plantings, and it girdles trunks when nobody comes back to loosen it. Tree Tie Webbing is soft, wide and lock-stitched, so it holds without unraveling and spreads the load across enough bark that it won't cut in. The Adj-A-Tye chain lock slips, twists and locks, and you can adjust it later without cutting it off, which also makes it useful for bracing an overloaded fruit limb.
The 360° Ultimate Tree Stabilizer holds the root ball steady while letting the trunk move, with a soft cradle protecting the bark at the contact point. Trunk movement builds caliper, so on a planting the crew won't revisit for a year, the tree keeps developing while the ball stays put.
Planting hardware
Wire basket angle matches spade angle. A Braun truncated 22° basket and a Vermeer 25° basket aren't interchangeable, so pick by the machine you run and not by ball size, or the ball seats badly and gaps open along one side. Untreated 7 oz burlap is the wrap for sites where treated fabric causes problems, and width is what you specify. A Tree Tote sling lifts a balled tree by the ball instead of the trunk.
Feeding and root establishment
ArborPlex 14-4-5 is the only tree and ornamental fertilizer in the catalog. It applies as a liquid, foliar or soil, so you can correct a deficiency in June instead of waiting for next spring. MycoApply Soluble MAXX measures under 300 microns, small enough to pass through a sprayer without being worked into the planting hole, and it carries OMRI listing for accounts that require it.
Dormant-season brush work
Garlon 4 Ultra is 61.6% triclopyr in a seed oil solvent, and its labeled application window includes the dormant season. That puts heavy brush work in winter, when the schedule has room and the target species have dropped their leaves. Mesquite, sweetgum and the other species that shrug off lighter chemistry are all on its label. Triclopyr 4 carries the same active at the same concentration in a different formulation, and its label claims little to no impact on cool-season grasses, so woody growth comes out of turf without the turf coming with it.
Saws
The Silky Zubat Arborist Edition changed the scabbard, not the blade. An added roller at the point catches the blade tip that used to wear a hole through the sheath. ARS builds pole saws as a system and sells heads and blades separately, so one pole outlives several blades and costs less across its life than a run of complete kits. For where the cuts belong on a mature tree, see crown reduction versus topping.
Climbing equipment
We stock saddles, rope runners, ropes and hardware, and we list the specs without picking between them. The climber going up on the gear picks it and inspects it. Nobody standing on the ground knows how a saddle has been loaded or what a rope has run over.
Colder zones
The dormant window closes when the ground freezes, so brush work, dormant applications and transplanting all compete for the same stretch of late fall and early spring. Crews that schedule all three into one window usually end up pushing the brush work to June.
Warmer zones
Dormancy runs shallower and later, which lengthens the usable triclopyr window but makes leaf drop unreliable as a signal to start. Watch the target species.
Which one to buy
Tree Tie Webbing and the Adj-A-Tye chain lock cover nearly every staking job between them, and neither will girdle a trunk if somebody forgets to come back.
Commercial mesh guards for volume work, Premium for specimens.
Garlon 4 Ultra is the winter brush product. Its dormant-season label window puts it on a January schedule instead of a June one.
Safety Section
Safety equipment & workwear
Every number here is printed on the product and checkable before you order
Hedge trimmer chaps and chainsaw chaps look similar hanging on a wall and protect against different things. Leonard's trimmer chaps are abrasion, tear and snag resistant with a waterproof front. Forester's apron-style chaps are built for a saw. A crew running both machines needs both on the truck, and grabbing the wrong pair is the kind of mistake nobody notices until it matters.
You buy most of what follows the same way, off a printed number rather than a description. NRR on hearing protection, ANSI cut level on gloves, ANSI type and class on vests, NIOSH designation on respirator cartridges. You can check all of it before the order goes out.
Hearing
The Hi-Vis Terminator rates 29 NRR, the highest on the page, and the hi-vis shell lets a foreman see from across a property whether it's on. DEWALT's Reducer rates 28 NRR and sells by the box, which is how you equip a crew rather than a person. Once you're into the high twenties, a single point of NRR matters less than whether the protection stays on somebody's head, so buy for fit and visibility.
Head and face
The safety helmet with mesh visor and ear muffs rates NRR 27 dB and puts head, face and hearing protection into one unit, with everything attached so nothing gets left in the truck. Mesh trades some spray protection for airflow and no fogging, which is the right trade for saw work.
Americana Type 1 helmets run a four-point MegaRatchet suspension with accessory slots for eye, face and hearing attachments, so one shell builds up to the job. Vented or un-vented is the real choice. A vented shell moves air on a July afternoon. An un-vented shell is what you want with debris coming down.
Hands
Nitrile disposables come in three thicknesses and the mil rating is the spec. At 3.5 mil you keep dexterity for fine work. At 6 mil with diamond texture you get chemical handling and wet grip. Vinyl at 3 mil is the budget floor and the wrong glove for any chemistry.
For work gloves, ANSI cut level is the number that matters. Milwaukee's nitrile-dipped rate A1 and handle general loading and material work. DEWALT's rate A3 and belong anywhere hands are near blades, glass or hardscape debris. Leonard ThermalGrip pairs insulation with a latex palm, so grip holds in cold and wet at the same time, which most insulated gloves sacrifice one or the other to manage.
DEWALT vibration-reducing chainsaw gloves address a different problem. Vibration exposure accumulates across seasons rather than injuring anyone on a single afternoon, so the argument for them is a long-term one.
Respiratory
Organic vapor with P100 is a different cartridge from multi gas vapor with P100, and matching the cartridge to the label of what you're spraying is a compliance step rather than a preference. A full-face respirator covers the eyes, which takes a separate pair of safety glasses out from under the hood along with the fogging that comes with them. ArmorGuard microporous coveralls give a disposable outer layer on spray days, so contaminated clothing doesn't ride home in the cab.
High visibility and weather
Economy mesh vests carry ANSI Type R Class 2, printed on the garment, which is the requirement for right-of-way work. The message-panel version puts a company name across the back for customer-facing sites. The premium PVC-coated polyester rainsuit runs .20 mm in two pieces, so the jacket goes on alone in a drizzle.
Colder zones
ThermalGrip insulated latex palm gloves keep grip in wet snow, and crews working through winter go through them fast enough to order by the case.
Warmer zones, and summer everywhere
Vented helmet shells and lighter coated gloves become the default, because heat is the reason PPE stops getting worn. A vest that's miserable in August comes off in August, so ventilation is a compliance question as much as a comfort one.
Which one to buy
Buy hearing protection by NRR and buy it by the box. The Reducer at 28 NRR outfits a whole crew for less than equipping people one at a time.
For chemical work, 6 mil nitrile with diamond texture and a full-face respirator with the cartridge matched to your label.
For crews handling blades or hardscape debris, DEWALT A3. A1 covers loading and general handling and isn't enough near a cutting edge.
Watering Section
Watering & moisture management
Getting water into the root ball instead of past it
A newly planted tree needs water delivered slowly enough to soak into the root ball rather than run off it, and often enough to carry the tree through its first summer. A hose left running for ten minutes puts most of that water past the roots and into the surrounding soil, where it does the tree no good at all.
ArborRain bags hold 20 or 32 gallons against the trunk and release over several hours. They sit low enough to fit under low limbs and around multi-trunk plantings where a taller bag won't, and the dark brown color disappears into hardwood mulch on properties where the client looks closely at the beds. On a mature tree under drought or construction stress, gang several around the drip line rather than putting one at the trunk.
The ArborRain Tower stands taller and drips over five to eight hours. Its drain holes sit where soil contact won't seal them, so the bag empties at its designed rate instead of holding water against the ground. Two or three zip together for larger caliper, and the tower holds position on a slope where a bag slides.
EcoRain hydrators come in 15 and 25 gallon sizes in sealed-edge PVC, built for volume work rather than for individual specimens. On an install running past hose reach with dozens of trees to keep alive, that's the line to price by the unit.
Deep Drip stakes deliver below the surface directly into the root zone, so nothing evaporates off the top and nothing runs down a grade. They're the answer on sites where a surface bag would only wet the mulch.
Beds and established plantings
A 6-foot tree ring soaker circles a single tree and buries under mulch, which covers per-tree watering without trenching a drip zone. For bed work, the 5/8-inch professional soaker is rubber with a 3/4-inch outside diameter and holds up to being buried in a bed you reopen every year. The Andrews hose reverses between sprinkler and soaker, and its end clip sets how much of the length actually irrigates, so one hose serves a narrow strip or a full bed.
Drip tape comes in 8-mil and 15-mil. The heavier tape buys seasons of service rather than more flow, so the choice is about how long the run needs to last. Irritec's P1 outlet flap closes when pressure drops, keeping soil and roots from being drawn back into the emitter between cycles. Whether a bed wants drip or spray heads in the first place is worth reading up on separately, and we cover that comparison here.
Pressure and timing
Municipal water pressure will destroy a drip or soaker line. The Senninger low flow regulator holds 15 psi from half a gallon to seven gallons per minute and carries no external metal to corrode. It costs less than the line it protects, and it's the piece most often left out of an installation.
Melnor XT timers run four independent cycles a day, and the filter valve keeps working with grit in the line. Several short cycles put water into a slope that one long cycle would run straight off.
For hand watering, the Dramm full volume breaker releases volume with no pressure behind it, so it waters a fresh seedbed or a bare-root liner without displacing anything.
Holding moisture in the soil
Terra-Sorb and Soil Moist Plus are polyacrylate polymers that hold many times their weight in water and recharge across seasons. Terra-Sorb fine grade goes into a hydroseed tank or a bare-root dip. Soil Moist Plus 7-7-7 is the granular that goes into the planting hole. Both carry their rates on the label.
A soil moisture meter reads 0 to 10 instantly, and you have to calibrate it to the soil type you're testing before the reading means anything.
Trenching and repair
Forged caprock irrigation shovels have a shallow bowl and 2-1/8 inch blade lift, which lets you dig close to vertical the way a trench wall wants. The catalog calls them out for soft, muddy and sandy soil.
The season ends with a blowout
Anywhere lines freeze, the irrigation season closes with a blowout rather than a shutoff. Water left in drip tape or a soaker hose expands as it freezes and splits the tube, and nothing shows until the system is pressurized in spring and a crew spends a morning hunting leaks across the property. Put the blowout on the fall schedule as its own visit.
Which one to buy
For an install crew keeping new trees alive across a season, EcoRain hydrators price better by the unit than anything else here.
On a mature tree under stress, gang ArborRain bags around the drip line rather than putting one at the trunk.
Buy the Senninger regulator with the first drip line you install. A blown line costs more than the regulator, and most of that cost is the labor to find the break.
Winter Section
Ice, salt & equipment
Wear strips, bridging, and the surfaces that decide both
A steel wear strip protects a shovel blade against concrete and asphalt, and that same strip will gouge a wood deck or composite decking. Ames builds an Arctic Blast shovel with a steel wear strip and a steel core handle for hard surfaces. The Structron S600 skips the strip entirely, running a polycarbonate blade on a 44-inch fiberglass handle, which makes it the one for finished decking.
MANPLOW's PRO pusher handles both. Its 1.5-inch EZ Glide Edge won't scratch or gouge wood or composite, and the edge is replaceable once it wears down. That wide edge also skims deep snow off in layers rather than stalling in it.
Leonard HD pushers come in 30 and 42 inch widths in UHMW poly a full quarter inch thick, on a fiberglass handle that doesn't transmit cold into your hands. Take the 30 for anything with corners and doorways, and the 42 where there's open drive to clear.
The Bigfoot pusher curves its blade so snow rolls forward and deposits onto an existing bank instead of dropping at your feet, which matters by the fourth pass down a long walk. The Snowcaster 3-foot blade keeps the operator upright and pushing rather than lifting and throwing.
Spreading salt
Damp ice melt cakes into an arch above the hopper opening and stops feeding, which leaves an operator out in the cold shaking a machine that won't meter. The Spyker ERGO PRO carries a stainless carving blade that cuts through dense ice melt and rock salt, and its hopper is shaped to keep material moving in the first place.
Both 100-pound walk-behinds handle different material. The SnowEx broadcast uses a 10-gauge wire grid to keep chunks out of the mechanism and throws up to 20 feet, which suits bagged product on sidewalks and entryways. SaltDogg's spreader runs a bulk flow gate for free-flowing material, an enclosed alloy gearbox with grease fittings, and 13-inch pneumatic tires, spreading to 24 feet.
The Leonard 50-pound broadcast has a poly and steel frame built to resist corrosion from salt and fertilizer. For ice melt, push it at about 2-1/2 miles per hour, which narrows the spread pattern to the width of a walk.
The Extreme Blower Spreader XD bolts onto a blower you already own in about five minutes and converts back by closing the flow gate, which is the cheapest way to put a second spreader on a truck.
Storage and cleanup
SnowEx salt storage boxes are non-corrosive UV-protected poly with padlock-compatible closures, and the three larger sizes have molded fork pockets so a full box moves on a forklift.
The Ultimate scraper comes in 6 and 12 inch widths in spring steel, stiff enough to chop at bonded ice and thin enough to peel it up once it releases. The telescoping roof rake reaches nearly 17 feet from the ground with a poly head that won't damage shingles or gutters, which keeps a crew off a roof when an ice dam forms.
Zones 3 through 5
Snow is a season rather than an event, so crews buy equipment for months of daily use. UHMW poly blades and replaceable wear edges return their cost over a single winter in these zones.
Zones 6 and 7
Storms arrive episodically and often wet, which makes caking worse and puts more weight on hopper design than on blade width. Crews in these zones go through more ice melt than they do shovel blades.
Zones 8 and warmer
Occasional events, and equipment spends most of the year in storage. Corrosion resistance matters more than blade life when a machine sits eleven months and works one.
Which one to buy
On decks and composite surfaces, the MANPLOW PRO or the Structron S600. A steel wear strip will mark those surfaces, so keep the wear-strip Arctic Blast on concrete and asphalt.
Running bagged ice melt on walks, buy the SnowEx 100. Working out of a bulk pile, buy the SaltDogg.
The Spyker ERGO PRO is the machine for crews running damp bagged product, since the hopper is shaped to keep material moving instead of packing up.
Sources
- Crabgrass germination soil temperature. Penn State Extension
- Grass seed germination temperature range. University of Maryland Extension
- Root pruning lead time for transplanting. Clemson Home & Garden Information Center
- Annual bluegrass germination timing. University of Tennessee Extension
