A lush, well-maintained lawn is the ideal green frame for colorful herbaceous borders, a fantastic setting for summer picnics as well as a foraging area for native birds and animals.
Keep your lawn looking beautiful may sometimes be challenging, especially when you are new to gardening.
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Once you’ve built your dream garden and installed the area’s best soil and grass, how are you going to keep it appearing its best?
We’re going to teach you how to keep your lawn looking great throughout the year.
To avoid getting a dull, weed plagued lawn, follow these easy steps and introduce a regular maintenance schedule.
Mow Your Lawn Regularly
It is best to cut just one-third of the length of the grass when mowing your lawn. The time of year and current weather conditions will decide how much you need to trim. Cut the grass in summer at least once a week and once every two weeks in spring, fall, and mild winters. Regular trimming facilitates the spreading of strong roots, which will help to fill bare patches and obstruct weeds.
In summer, raise your mower’s cutting height to keep the grass longer, about 5-10 cm; this will make it less likely to go brown during dry conditions. Make sure that the mower is well balanced and the blades are clean.
When the grass is wet, avoid mowing, as it will prevent the lawnmower from cutting the grass cleanly and inhibit healthy future growth. If you have a mower with a roller, you will need to alternate the direction of mowing each time.
Edge Your Lawn
Edging a lawn, is a fresh trimmed lawn’s final touch. To trim the edge of your yard, use a pair of long-handled shears this avoids the grass from spreading into borders. It neatens the lawn tremendously, producing a very pleasing resul. Where the grass has extended into the boundary, add permanent edging that grass can’t cross.
Remove Weeds and Moss
Weeds can appear everywhere as birds flying over, pets and other animals running around the lawn, or even shoes can carry them into the yard. With a wide variety of common species, lawn weeds may grow seed heads and if left compound the problem.
Weeds like plantains and dandelions have broad flat leaves that can smother large yard areas and stop grass growth. At the same time, they are easy to remove using a hand trowel or daisy grubber. Yellow medick, clover, and buttercups can also spread across a lawn rapidly, so raking before mowing can help the mower to pick them up, weakening them over time and eventually killing them off.
To get rid of difficult weeds, try using weedkillers. Otherwise, the best choice is to take out the whole weed, including the roots. You can do this by hand or by using a tool. However, if there is a large amount, try spraying the weeds directly with a low toxicity herbicide.
Mosses are non-flowering plants that can create the worst issues with the lawn. They flourish in places that have excess moisture, shade, and thin, weak grass. The initial conditions that allow it to develop include:
- Shade
- Drought
- Poor drainage
- Clay within the soil
- High quantities of thatch
The reason for the issue must be identified and mitigated to eliminate the moss. It can then be monitored and maintained with feeding and scarification.
Aerate Your Lawn
Compacted soil stops grass growth and may lead to bare patches in the summer. Push a garden fork about 10cm deep into the soil every 10cm. Gently rock back and forth on the fork handle to alleviate the compaction and aerate the ground. The prongs open the soil, enabling the roots to relax and fostering regrowth of the grass. Alternatively you can make the job quicker and easier with a tool designed to aerate the lawn
This technique helps air and water penetrate deeper into the grass’s root zone, which is vital to obtaining the right nutrients to grow. It is an excellent way of maintaining lawn damaged by waterlogging or drought.
To increase ventilation and avoid future compaction, brush sharp sand or fine horticultural grit into the gaps on heavy terrains, such as clay soils.
Water Your Lawn
The amount and frequency of irrigation in your area will depend on the type of soil and weather conditions. To get better results, it is best to water the lawn at the beginning of the day or evening in cooler temperatures. Water the lawn regularly during the hot season to prevent yellowing.
Always water young grass, but do not overwater, as this may lead them to root problems. Sprinklers are suitable for keeping gardens hydrated.
Feed Your Lawn
You have to feed your lawn regularly to keep your garden looking healthy. For a quick and precise task, invest in a wheeled lawn spreader feeder if you have a big garden. Add fertilizer to the lawn when rain is expected so that it gets down to the roots and prevents it from burning the green leaves. If there is no rain, use a hose or watering can to water in the fertilizer, alsway read the instruction as different fartalizers have specific requirements.
In most gardening stores, there is a range of lawn feeds and fertilizers available. You can pick the best fertilizers depending on the current soil and climate at your location. Some of these would have suggested implementation guidelines, so it is best to follow their product instructions.
It is usually recommended to treat your lawn twice a year, once in spring with nitrogen-rich lawn feed and once in autumn with a high-phosphate and potash fertilizer. An organic fertilizer over chemical alternatives can improve long-term lawn health. Inside a week, your lawn would appear greener.
Fill Bare Patches
Care patches ruin your lawn’s appearance. Cut out a rectangle or square of grass from an unused area to fill the bare patch, dig up the soil to whatever depth of soil your new turf strip is. Lay the grass gently, cut to match, over the patch. Firm it down so that there are no holes and no higher or lower turf. Alrenatively you can reseed the area after first raking the bare patch and then water.
Overseed Your Lawn
Covering the entire lawn with new seed combined with fertilizer, is called over-seeding. It rejuvenates exhausted and unhealthy lawns. Overseeding, fills bare patches, improves the color and reducing the possibility of weed and moss invasions. The yard would need to be aerated, mowed, and well-watered before the overseeding. To help get an even distribution of seeds, spreaders are available for purchase.
Once planted, the grass will have to be kept moist, and a top dressing will have to be added to cover the seeds and provide nutrients. You should perform this action every year to maintain a healthy lawn.
Top Dress Your Lawn
Mulching is used to build up and enhance the existing soil’s quality, providing extra drought resistance and drainage while taking out any imperfections. In order to get the right materials and consistency when creating your top dressing, your garden’s soil type will need to be checked.
Get Your Soil Tested
If you find that despite all the efforts, your lawn is not flourishing or performing like your neighbors, there may be several reasons. A lawn care service may will conduct a soil test and perform other remediess to assist.
The right nutrients, PH levels, and other natural balances needed for optimal lawn root growth may be missing in your soil. Your soil can need aeration, periodic cultivation, or loosening. This helps to get air into your soil and support lawn that needs enhanced growth and adequate nutrition.
