Basic Lawn Care Tips

There can be nothing more satisfying than driving up to your home and seeing a beautiful green lawn. Seems like every neighborhood has 3 types of people. Ones that just don’t care and have a lawn that is all weeds. Then there are those who really want a nice lawn, and try, but just can’t seem to make it happen. And then there are the ones that have a lawn that looks like it should be on the cover of a magazine! Hopefully you will be in the last group. Let’s review some basic lawn care tips to get you started.

Watering: Watering your lawn is required. We will go over the different ways in the advanced lawn care tips, but for now we will go over the method. When you water, water DEEP. If you just water the top inch you will encourage your grass to have shallow roots, and that is not healthy. Check the depth after watering by digging up a small hole. It should be damp 6 to 12 inches down. Once you figure out how long to water you will not have to do this again. Also, if you walk on your lawn you should not see your foot prints. The grass should spring back up if you have watered correctly.

Water early in the day so that your lawn can dry out before night fall. A damp lawn at night is an invitation for fungus! Also, make sure that your lawn dries out in between waterings.

Fertilization: You must have a good fertilization schedule. This will be a topic on it’s own, but for the basic lawn care tips I will say twice between the middle of March and the beginning of May (may be different depending upon your climate). First a pre-emergent and then a weed killer. If you put any fertilizer on after May you will be inviting fungus. And then once more after the end of August. And use slow release fertilizers.

Mowing: You really need to leave the clippings. There seems to be a lot of opinions on this. The clippings have great nutritional value and they add humus to your soil. They also act as a mulch and help keep your soil cool. It is best to use a mulching mower with sharp blades. Do not cut in the same direction every time and do not cut more that 1/3 of the grass blade. And most of all, do not cut it too short. I keep my mower at the highest possible position at all times.

Weeds: The basic lawn care tips for weeds are simple. Do not let the weeds get out of control. I keep some weed killer in a spray bottle and spot spray every couple of weeks. Make sure that you follow the directions and pay attention to the weather and watering schedule. You don’t want to wash away the weed killer before it has a chance to do it’s job.

So there you have it. Just the basics. We will go into the advanced lawn care tips later.

Enjoy your healthy green lawn!