Every homeowner wants to have a beautiful lawn, but not everyone knows what steps to take. Hopefully these tips can show you that with a little knowledge and effort, keeping a beautiful lawn doesn’t have to be a chore. Maybe you’ll learn, like millions of homeowners have, that maintaining your lawn can actually be a fun hobby.
Maintaining your lawn comes down to keeping the grass you want healthy and the weeds and other unwanted intruders out. To help accomplish this, here are four key tips:
- Fescue lawns need to be cut on the highest setting of your lawn mower. One of the most common mistakes people make is they cut their fescue lawn too short. Each type of grass has a recommended length at which it is healthiest, and if you mow shorter it can expose the lawn to a multitude of problems. Tall turf creates a shady canopy preventing the sun’s rays from reaching weeds and their seedlings, this limited sunlight will not allow them to germinate or flourish. Dry, brown areas can even develop after cutting short too many times. This will invite in pests and disease and can be a downward spiral that can ruin the health of your lawn.
- Cut the turf tall is step one. Aeration and seeding in the fall is step two. Aeration relieves compaction and allows air, nutrients and water to reach the root zone more easily. This process should be done every year or at least every other year. Aeration is the process of punching holes and pulling plugs of soil out, those plugs will lightly break down back into the soil. This allows the roots to expand more easily creating a stronger healthier plant. Over seeding is done immediately after aeration to fill in thin areas caused by heat, traffic and disease.
- Another tip to remember is never to cut the lawn when it’s wet unless absolutely necessary. Wet grass does not cut as well. The grass blades will slide right off the mower blades. Also, the grass blades, when they do cut, will tend to clump and either clog the mower or end up in clumps all across the lawn.
- Lastly, take care of your most important tool – your lawn mower. Lawn mowers are not cheap instruments but people often leave them rusty and in disrepair. There are only a few things to keep in mind, though. Replace your spark plug and air filter every year. They are cheap and vital to the working of your machine. Use a wire brush to clean out any clumped grass stuck around the blades underneath. Check the oil for any debris or changing of color because, as with a car, having fresh oil will extend the life of your mower. Also make sure your blade is sharp, be sure to sharpen it several time a year. Make sure to read the manual before all else as each machine has different maintenance requirements.
With these four important tips, your lawn will be well on its way to being the envy of the neighborhood throughout the Triangle and Raleigh areas of North Carolina.