Sultan sits on the Sultan River, on the way up the highway toward the trails and the passes. Yards step with the terrain. Water comes off the higher ground, crosses a lawn, and heads for the river or the ditch. Alder seedlings, blackberry, and grass from the clearing move in every year. This is cutting and pulling on a schedule, not one spray.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98294 · 2020 population 5,458
Weeds from the timber edge
Blackberry gets cut and the regrowth treated, or it is back thicker. We do not spray a hillside indiscriminately and call it cleared. Horsetail in a wet seep is a water story. Chemical on horsetail without draining the seep is a temporary browning.
The maintained lawn on the bench can be spot-treated like any other. The edge where the forest starts needs a physical line: bark, mowing, or a bed you are willing to keep.
The ground in Sultan
The useful projects are the ones that make a sloped lot walkable: a gravel path that stays put, a rock wall where the bank is cutting, a drain at the top of the slope so the patio is not the creek. Forest edge is close. Alders and maples lean in, and after a wind the cleanup is limbs, not a few leaves on a patio.
Lawns exist on the benches. They need seed that can take shade at the tree line and a soil that is often thin. We do not promise a golf-course surface against the timber. Native mountain plants hold the cuts better than a bark bed that just slides downhill in January. Access for machines is usually fine along the highway side and tight once you are in the trees. We look at that before we promise a wall.
How we do the work
Buttercup, dandelion, and clover in a lawn usually mean the grass is thin, the soil is wet or sour, or the mowing is too short. Spray on a lawn that is mostly weed is a brown yard. We thicken the grass and treat the weeds that are actually invaders, and we tell you when the lawn should be renovated instead.
In beds, the honest tools are a thick bark layer, a pulled root, and a edge that the field cannot cross. Pre-emergent has a place on gravel and on open soil. It is not a substitute for three inches of bark in a bed that was never mulched.
What we look at first
- Which weed it is, because buttercup and horsetail are not the same job
- How much of the lawn is still grass
- Wet spots that will regrow the weed no matter what we spray
- Beds versus turf, so we are not putting a lawn product in a shrub bed
Bare spots need seed
A dead weed is a hole. In a lawn, that hole is the next weed unless grass fills it. We seed the opening when the product label and the season allow, or we come back and seed. Leaving dirt is not a finished visit.
Spot treat, do not fog
A targeted application on the weeds you can name beats a broadcast that yellows the grass and still misses the roots in a wet spot. We would rather make a second short visit than burn a lawn to get the dandelions.
Beds
Hand pull the perennials, three inches of bark, and an edge the mower can feel. Fabric under bark is something we spend the next visit cutting out. We do not install it as weed control.
More from this crew
- Lawn weed control across Snohomish County
- Lawn fertilization in Sultan
- Lawn aeration in Sultan
- Beauty bark in Sultan
- Lawn mowing in Sultan
- Lawn weed control in Monroe
- Lawn weed control in Gold Bar
- Lawn weed control in Index
Sources for the climate and the water
- USDA plant hardiness map for choosing plants that can take a Snohomish County winter.
- EPA WaterSense on watering less once a lawn or a new planting is established.
- EPA Soak Up the Rain on keeping roof and yard water from becoming someone else’s problem.
