Trey Rogers - Lawn Geek: Tips and Tricks for the Ultimate Turf From the Guru of Grass

First, I would like to thank Sonia Castleberry. Her tireless efforts as well as her quickly acquired knowledge and expertise were very impressive. Next, there is Alec Kowalewski, my illustrator. Amazingly, he was always able to read my mind.

The next set of thanks goes to my colleagues at Michigan State University, Jim Crum, Kevin Frank, Joe Vargas, and Ron Calhoun. Thanks for listening to my ideas and schemes. These are guys who never get tired of talking about turf.

Next I would like to thank all of my students, graduate and undergraduate, all one thousand (and counting) of you. I have learned something from everyone.

I would also like to thank my friends at Briggs & Stratton, Rick Zeckmeister, Anita Fisher, Monica Baer, and Terri Kaminski. These are the people who helped start the Lawn Geek, a.k.a. Yard Doctor. It has been an unbelievable journey.

I would be remiss if I did not thank Tracy Bernstein and all of her gang at New American Library. After all, the book was as much their idea as anyones. Thanks for being so encouraging, patient, and nurturing.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Michelle, and our children, Rebecca, Miranda, and Evan. You are everything I ever dreamed, more than I could ever ask for, and far more than I deserve. I have loved every minute with all of you.

Appendix CEssential Gear, and
Essentials About Gear

The way I see it, when it comes to lawns, there are three basic types of people.

Youve got your lawn snobs, folks who appreciate a magnificent, lush, well-kept lawn, but from arms length. Theyre not going to get down and dirty with their turf. Instead, theyll gladly pay others to do it for them. Youve got your lawn slobs, the people who couldnt care less about what their lawns look like, and it shows. And youve got your lawn geeks, the ones who care maybe a little too much about the green stuff and have the calluses on their palms and the permanent black stuff etched under their fingernails to prove it.

I am decidedly a member of the third group. And Im proud of it. Although I sometimes bristle at being classified as a geek, Ive become convinced that being a lawn geek is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, its far from it. Like computer geeks who understand things like kilobytes and seek rates and whatnot, and can use these terms in coherent sentences, we understand things like evapotranspiration rates and fertilizer ratios. And we can use them in sentences, too. Its nice to know a geek or two when certain problems erupt. When it comes to lawns, lawn geeks are the go-to guys.

Being a lawn geek gives you license to spend time with the object of your affection and not make any excuses for it. You can stuff your snout deep into a choice divot of turf, inhale the warm, organic mustiness of good soil, and not be branded a weirdo. You can be an amateur geek or actually get paid for doing things like spending long hours staring at grass or getting down on your hands and knees for a bugs-eye view of the world. You can be a groundskeeper at a golf course or oversee the turf in athletic fields. Or you can take the career path I did and sign on at a major university that has a turf sciences program and bear responsibility for turning out the next generation of lawn geeks as well as conduct research for current and future lawn geek generations to use.

Ive made a good living doing what I love, which is working with the green stuff that grows under our feet. While my real obsession is playing fields, I often get called on to transfer my knowledge of them into smaller areas, such as lawns. I provide information on a large scale as a consultant for Briggs & Stratton, the lawn mower people. As the Yard Doctor, I do radio shows, make television appearances, and answer questions online at my Web site (www.yarddoctor.com). But I also make house calls. A lot of house calls. When it comes to helping people with their lawns, I just cant get enough.

In the professional world of turf management, people like me spend a lot of time researching things like water application, mowing, and weed-control strategies for commercial turf. It makes sense for us to do so, being that folks depend on the results of our efforts to guide theirs. But our efforts sometimeswell, maybe more than sometimesrange beyond the call of duty. Some might call it an obsession. Im not sure Id go that far, but I do know that just about everyone Ive ever met who deals with turfgrass, professionally or not, does so out of an abiding love for the green stuff. As such, theres a deep connection between us and everyone else who is passionate about having a great-looking lawn. Kind of a brotherhood of the green. Or, for that matter, a sisterhood. Geekiness knows no gender.