Drive by any expensive home and you may find yourself envious of the well-kept conditions of their lawn. Don’t waste your time being green with envy—your lawn should be the green one! Follow these basic tips to grow, protect, and maintain your best lawn yet!
Prepare Your Lawn for Winter
When fall is here, it's important that you get rid of fallen tree branches. Leaving them behind can suffocate your lawn, which will lead to bare spots. You can mow over dead leaves to create a natural mulch for your lawn that will help with its growth. Just be sure to not leave any wet clumps of leaves on your lawn—wet spots provide the perfect conditions for mold and fungi growth.
Even if the grass looks great, feel free to put down some more fertilizer. The grass and soil will benefit from the extra nutrients. Plants become dormant when the weather is cold. The dormant state allows you to plant or relocate bulbs and other plants more easily. Before the first freeze, cut the grass lower than usual.
Mow Often and Prune Overgrown Plants
Spring is the time of year that most people think of getting outside, gardening, and otherwise taking care of their yards. Abundant sunshine and rainfall stimulates flower growth and helps shrubs to develop into thick bushes.
Although the new growth will be a welcome sight, you have to perform weekly maintenance to stay in control of your lawn. Do you have a good lawnmower and a reliable pair of pruning shears? When trimming plants, don't go overboard—excessive pruning can damage them. Err on the side of caution by cutting off the dead stems only.
Mowing is a priority not only because it keeps the grass low, but because it has a big impact on your lawn's quality. Taller grasses provide the soil with shade and produce more plant food. They even make it difficult for weeds to sprout. But this shouldn’t dissuade you from mowing—just remember to raise your mower. Spring creates the right conditions for plants to grow, which means you should also expect weeds to rear their ugly heads at some point.
Feed Your Lawn and Remove Invaders
Regular cleanups will go a long way toward keeping your lawn intact. The strong winds in autumn carry seeds from one yard to another, and spring is the season when the seeds germinate. If you take measures to stop weeds from sprouting, you will lighten your workload for the upcoming months.
Effective solutions include pre-emergent and post-emergent herbicides and organic mulch. Weeding won't be a time-consuming task if you apply the herbicide because the potent chemicals will shield your lawn from common weed species, such as barnyard grass, dandelions, and crabgrass. With fewer invaders in your lawn, you can focus on your summer duties: mowing, watering and pest control.
Although sunshine is essential to grass and plants, the soaring temperatures of summer will do more harm than good. Dry, compacted soil responds well to several inches of compost. Aeration is another strategy that will help eliminate soil compaction. You need to water your lawn at least two days before you aerate. After you loosen the soil, you should overseed it. Watering it again will certainly help, but don't saturate your lawn—this will make your lawn more vulnerable to fungi and diseases.
Every season brings its own struggles, but during the holiday season, it can be especially hard to devote time to proper care of your lawn. You can always get year-round assistance from a professional landscaping company. Contact the team at River’s Edge Lawn & Landscape to learn how our services will give you peace of mind and a great lawn.