Lawns and Marker Dye

Question for Pro Gard here.

I followed your advice and bought a CP sprayer and some iron and feed from ALS.

All good and good value too.

Finally had the time today to put the thing together and try it out.

A very nice bit of kit, but I thought the instructions were poor. Took me a long time to work out how to connect the straps. I bought the 15L sprayer, and I forgot to take into account how heavy it would be to put on.

I felt like one of the 'Ghostbusters' when I put it on!

Anyway, I mixed up some iron and used some marker dye.

Has anyone else tried this? My back garden now looks like the scene of some huge battle. Blood red.

My question is : Did I use too much dye? I used one sachet per 15l of spray.

Plus I was terrified that the stuff would not come off. I must have washed my hands for 15mins. The thought of going to work tomorrow with bright red hands was a trifle worrying! (It finally al came off with laundry detergent)

So PG - any more tips and tricks for a CP sprayer. I started with iron today.

How quickly does the dye wash away?

How long shall I leave before the next feed?

What have been the reactions from people when you have 'painted' their lawns before?

 

I use around a tea spoon of dye per Tank, or in real terms a small sprinkle into the sprayer! The desire is to colur the spray suficently that it shows up only.

I do wear gloves when spraying as a point of course and would sudgest this, the iron and dye wont hurt you but as you found you dont want scarlet hands!!! The dye normaly disapears after a night of rainfall, For a really good green lawn I tend to apply iron solution monthly during the active growing season, this is on lawns im cutting weekly.

Most customers are happy with the dye as they can see that the job has been done thourughly!! as I say it disapears quite quickly normally. Weve got heavy rain forecast later this week so the dye should be washed off fairly soon.

 

Thanks for replying.

My hands are now not so red - but I think that the THREE sachets of dye I used was now maybe a bit too much!!!

I did think it was very useful - I was suprised at how much work it was to spray one of my lawns consistently and evenly - which is obviously what is needed when applying a feed.

It has been a fun day - but I was pretty worried when it first went down.

I'll keep you posted as to how the 'green up' is following the feed.

 

I also bought some lawn feed from ALS.

How soon should I wait to use it? I did iron last weekend. I was going to leave it this weekend and apply feed next weekend.

Is that right? How long do you leave between feeds if you do iron every month?

Great advice BTW - the sprayer is excellent.

 

Sounds a good plan.

I tend to feed every couple of months from early spring until september / october.

Usually a week or two bettween the iron and the feed.