There’s no right season for taking care of your lawn. If you’re growing grass and want to create a lush green lawn in your front and backyard, that will require some dedication. It’s important to know when to mow your grass, how to treat it properly, and even how to prevent pests from ruining your yard.
Keep reading to learn these and other valuable lawn care tips to keep your grass beautiful and healthy all year round.
“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. –Elon Musk
Know What You’re Dealing With
Before anything, discover what type of grass and plants you have in your lawn by researching it online or talking to a local specialist. It will make it much easier to know exactly what kind of treatment and maintenance your lawn needs.
Keep The Basics Treatments Up To Date
You may already know the basics of how to take care and treat your lawn, but let’s reinforce their importance.
- Water your lawn only the needed: It’s recommended to water your grass evenly since most lawns need 1 to 1,5 inches of water per week. It’s common for people to divide that into two waterings a week, but that will depend on your location and weather. Just be sure you don’t overwater your lawn.
- Fertilize at least three times a year: Feeding your lawn with nutrients helps maintain it green and growing thick.
- Mow it regularly: Preferably, keep your grass at least three inches tall. Cutting it lower can make your lawn more likely to drought, which can cause several problems.
- Remove weeds: These invasive plants can take over if the lawn is not treated. You can remove them manually, digging out the weeds or applying chemical weed killers.
Have a Lawn Care Schedule
Since there are tasks you need to do at certain times and seasons, lawn care maintenance is an activity that requires a strict schedule. Organize the maintenance and schedule it, according to your time and availability.
Program Yourself For Spring
Spring is an important and busy season for lawn care. If you want to maintain a lush green lawn year-round, you should take some measures for the spring season. Here are a few tips:
- Clean up your yard: Early spring is a good period for cleaning your yard, since there may be some debris left from winter.
- Fertilize: The window to fertilize varies due to the type of grass, but overall feeding your lawn before it hits peak growth helps accelerate it and addresses the damages leftover from winter.
- Pre-emergent herbicides: Applying pre-emergent herbicides in the spring prevents weeds from growing at all. But it’s necessary to apply it before the weeds emerge, otherwise it won’t be that effective and the weeds may still grow.
Take Care of Your Lawn in The Summer
The summer heat can be tough, especially without proper caring. Here are some of the things you should do to avoid grass damage during summer:
- Mow the grass high: Having the grass taller in summer shades the soil, which avoids the evaporation of water, and prevents weeds seeds from germinating.
- Control the grubs: Avoid insects that may feed on your grass, like Japanese bugs, using grub control products.
In Summer, avoid parking in the grass and if you plan to overseed, do not apply pre-emergent herbicides.
Fall Lawn Care Schedule
- Clean up often: You don’t need to be very strict about raking up the fallen leaves, but when they start to fall, don’t let them accumulate, otherwise it may block the sunlight your grass needs.
- Aerate: This common winter prep is also recommended to mitigate summer effects.
- Fertilize: Fall is the most important season to fertilize your lawn.
- Do not sleep on the pest issue: As soon as winter ends, the insects will return to be a lawn problem again.
Prepare Your Lawn For The Winter
The winter may cause some damage to your lawn if it’s not correctly prepared for this season of the year. Take a look below at what you can do for avoiding it:
- Leave your lawn short: As the cold moves closer, lower bit by bit your cutting deck to ease the lawn into an overall lower height. It’ll help to keep it from being host to field mice and other animals that could burrow through the winter.
- Aerate: Before winter comes, aerate your lawn. Aerating combats soil compaction, so the grass can grow better and breathe. Since the ground is harder in the winter, this makes it tough for the soil to retain water. Aeration creates the pathway for the water all the way to the roots.
- Overseed: Some weeks before winter, overseed your lawn and that will prevent the excessive loss of grass during winter, which will give it a boost in the spring season.
During the winter avoid walking on the grass, and if your lawn has ice, melt it carefully.
Pest Management
Managing the pest problem may be difficult sometimes, but it is still necessary. Pest control provides protection from harmful insects and diseases that can cause serious damage to plants.
Do not forget to certify your lawn is safe from pest problems, especially in seasons like summer, when the heat is attractive for insects.
Organic Lawn Care
It’s common for grass to get a little damaged due to the use of chemical lawn care products in the long run, and that’s why some gardeners choose the organic lawn care option. This is a healthy and chemical-free way to take care of your grass. Check out the pros and cons:
Advantages:
- The risk of chemical exposure is radically reduced.
- There usually aren't any problems with over-applying any organic products.
- Organic lawn care benefits the environment.
- Organic fertilizers are more recommended for the grass since they hold water and vital nutrients for the soil better.
Disadvantages:
- The results won’t be immediate. Organic lawn care takes time and yet it’s most likely for the grass to have a decline, due to the chemical recuperation.
- It’s common to have more weeds.
- The financial cost may be higher.
- Pest control for organic lawns may be more complicated.
Lawn Care Companies Make it Easy for You
Gardening is something that takes time and may be complicated sometimes, doesn’t matter if you have a big front yard or if you’re taking care of a small patch of land. If you think you won’t be able to manage the lawn on your own, consider hiring professional lawn care services.
An expert can take care of your lawn when you don’t have the time or patience for it, guaranteeing healthy and steady growth.
Ready to have the lush green lawn you’ve always wanted? Contact a local lawn care company and request a free quote!
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