Maintaining a lush, green lawn requires regular care to stay healthy. Knowing the proper way to water, fertilize and mow the grass can ensure its continued vitality.
Nip out any weeds as soon as they appear, spread grass seed where necessary, and aerate your turf in spring to improve its health. With these lawn care tips in place, your yard can look its best!
1. Water Your Lawn
Watering your lawn at an appropriate frequency and level is key to its health and appearance. Established grasses typically require about an inch of moisture weekly – either through natural precipitation or irrigation systems.
Early morning is the optimal time to water your lawn, ensuring the roots receive adequate hydration before sunrise. Watering at any other time may result in wasteful evaporation as droplets adhere to grass blades and spread diseases that threaten lawn health.
Water should be evenly distributed throughout your yard to reduce wasteful use of resources and preserve our precious natural resources. You can use a rain gauge or soil probe to monitor how much moisture reaches the root zone; additionally, each time you water, ensure you check its penetration depth for maximum effect.
2. Aerate Your Lawn
At some point in time, your lawn’s soil may have become compacted due to outdoor soccer games, family dog walks and/or an intense father-son badminton tournament. This makes it hard for grass roots to penetrate its hard, dry surface in search of oxygen, water and nutrients that they require for growth.
Aerating can loosen this layering and help your grass flourish once more. Aerators can be done manually using fork tines or forked sticks, or you can rent or buy one to complete this task quickly and efficiently.
To achieve optimal results, aerating your lawn when the soil is damp is ideal – early spring or fall for cool-season grasses (but summer for warm-season ones as well) but summer also works well if possible. Just be sure to dethatch first as this helps the aerator penetrate deeply.
3. Mow Your Lawn
Lawn care begins with correct mowing. Cutting grass too short strains the plant and can result in diseases, pests and weeds forming in its place. Aim for an ideal height which is one-third above your mower blade as a goal for optimal lawn care.
Make sure that you avoid cutting your new lawn too often during times of high rainfall and allow new grasses to develop before cutting them back.
Always switch up your mowing pattern each time, to help avoid creating ruts in the lawn and to ensure a variety of cuts for optimal grass development – using a checkerboard pattern is best to achieve this effect.
4. Fertilize Your Lawn
An ideal lawn requires the perfect balance of nutrients. Applying fertilizer at the best time of year will help your grass look its best while resisting weeds.
No matter if it’s liquid or granular fertilizer you use, always read its label to understand its composition and effectiveness. Liquid fertilizers work quickly but need frequent applications; while granular ones dissolve more gradually to provide consistent nutrition.
If using a spreader, be sure to fill its hopper on a tarp in order to easily sweep up any spills from applying fertilizer with it. Beginning from your yard’s perimeter and moving inward, apply fertilizer in straight rows or similar to how you mow. Overlap application strips slightly so your entire lawn receives even treatment; once finished water thoroughly after fertilizing in order to prevent an increase of nitrogen in soil.
5. Trim Your Trees
As your trees on your property mature, they require regular pruning to maintain a healthy and attractive appearance. Any damaged limbs garden irrigation repairs should be cut back before storms damage them further or they pose any other risks – this also helps stimulate new growth, prevent disease and provide air flow between leaves.
Keep your yard looking its best year round by leaving this task in the hands of professional lawn care services – they will know when is best to trim and prune! Let them put their experience and expertise to work for you. Your bushes and trees are safe.