Are you getting ready for the spring season?
When it’s spring, taking care of your lawn is a great way to keep your property value consistent. It’s an investment that you must take for the future. However, having little experience with spring lawn care can make it difficult.
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Not sure how to take care of your lawn?
After reading this guide, you’ll learn valuable spring lawn care tips. Read on and learn more:
1. Clean and Repair Your Lawn in Spring
If you have a well-maintained lawn, all you need is to rake it after the ground dries out. When you encounter problematic areas, you must address them as soon as possible. This is important because it puts undue stress on your lawn.
If you don’t, the stress causes your lawn to become more susceptible to diseases and weeds. A common problem you must address is uneven ground. It’s because low spots don’t drain well while high spots get scalped by your lawnmower.
These situations will make poor growing conditions for grass. To remedy this, grab a shovel and cut the raised areas. After that, use the dirt to fill in the lower areas to even the ground.
Another issue you must deal with is soil compaction. This problem is more prevalent in high-traffic areas. It happens when the soil’s density increases, making it easier for weeds to take over.
With compact soil, your grass won’t thrive as well. Test your lawn by sticking a garden fork into the ground. If it fails to penetrate at least 2 inches, it means the soil is compact.
Use an aerator to solve your soil compaction problem. This tool’s design allows it to get rid of small plugs of soil.
2. Plant Grass in the Spring
After cleaning and repairing your lawn, you’ll likely need to reseed some of its parts. It’s especially when they look bare or brown with dead grass. When you do this, it improves your grass appearance.
However, to make the most out of it, you must follow a certain guideline. This ensures the grass you plant won’t look worse than before. This starts by addressing your lawn’s soil conditions.
Examine the reason why the grass didn’t grow well in the past. Get experts for a soil test since this determines the lacking nutrients in your lawn. After correcting your soil composition, avoid soil compaction by using an aerator.
Before buying a seed, think about the varieties that work best within your region. This also accounts for the amount of sunlight your yard receives. After that, estimate the planting area since it affects your seed-planting process.
If you spread the seeds over a wider area, get a broadcast spreader. Otherwise, smaller areas are better off getting hand-seeded. The more important matter is taking care of the grass after planting them.
Do your best to water your lawn on a regular basis. It helps maintain soil moisture. At the same time, fertilize it using low-nitrogen products.
3. Fertilize Grass in the Spring
Speaking of fertilizing, you can prevent weed growth by using herbicides alongside fertilizers. Depending on some factors, the right time and amount of fertilizer vary. For example, your location and the severity of your weed problem are primary factors.
Fertilizers help make your lawn thick and lush. However, if you don’t use it well, you’ll end up damaging the grass. The best fertilizer is a slow-release nitrogen variant.
The right amount of this fertilizer is a pound for every 1,000 square feet. Apply this early in the season since it’s when the turf is active. Otherwise, the lingering cold or early summer heat could damage the grass.
You must also take care of using herbicides. It’s because their efficacy depends on their time of use. If you have an intense weed infestation, use a pre-emergent herbicide. It’s best to do this before the seeds germinate.
A major drawback of using this type of herbicide is when you plan to plant new grass. It’s because this also prevents the grass seeds from germinating. Consult one of the 506,000 landscaping services in the United States if you need help.
You can use a non-selective herbicide for more isolated infestations. Use a spot treating method to prevent untoward effects.
4. Mow Your Lawn in the Spring
Grass cutting involves more methods beyond starting the lawnmower. To maintain your grass’s health, think about your mowing height and frequency. If you have no time to think about this, get a lawn mowing service to do it for you.
A practice you must eliminate is mowing the grass short. This saves you time since you need not mow your lawn as often. However, this is a harmful practice in the long run.
Use a low blade height when mowing. This eliminates the nutrients stored in leaf blades and gives soil sunlight exposure. With this, weeds can grow easier.
Taller grass can compete with weeds because of its bigger roots. Trimming grass at this height also makes them tolerant of heat. The best part is that the ground retains more water.
5. Maintain Your Lawn Equipment
Ensure you can maintain your lawn using these lawn care tips and maintain your equipment. This ensures that your lawnmower and other pieces of equipment run in working order. Take note, these machines use gasoline as fuel, meaning you must maintain them in a certain way.
First, remove the gasoline and disconnect the spark plug. After that, remove the blades and drain the oil. Clean the equipment and fill the oil tank before replacing the air filter.
To finish it off, replace the old spark plug since a new one is cheap anyway.
Get More Spring Lawn Care Tips Today!
With these spring lawn care tips, you’ll never have to worry about your lawn drying out. Stick to these guidelines and commit to a schedule to make your lawn flourish.
Did you find these early spring lawn care tips helpful? If so, please consider reading our other guides and learn how to make your lawn look its best.