When it comes to Yard Maintenance and Yard Care many people can become quickly overwhelmed. Not knowing what order to do things, the importance of certain actions, or even what to do can be a daunting place to begin your yard care journey. In order to lessen the stress, Isbell Rentals has compiled a list of some need-to-know tips for caring for your yard.
Tip #1: Mowing Best Practice
When mowing your lawn it’s best to not cut off more than a third of the grass’s length, this means that if the grass is 3 inches tall, you should set your mower to two inches. For warmer weather months it is a good idea to let the grass get a little bit taller, that way the blades provide shade to the roots which can help prevent the roots from getting too dried out. As temperatures cool, you can begin slowly lowering your mower. You will want to refrain from mowing around the beginning of fall once grass stops growing, as mowing when the grass is not growing can end up harming your lawn.
When you mow, you’ll want to make sure that the grass is dry so that you avoid damaging your mower with clumps of wet grass and you’ll want to make sure to pick up the discarded cuttings. If you leave the cuttings you can risk suffocating the grass by cutting off its access to sun and other nutrients.
Tip #2: When And How To Fertilize
Like a person, lawns need proper nutrients in order to thrive. And that is where fertilizing comes in. Although the best times to fertilize your lawn are during the spring and fall, if you are in an area that does not receive snowfall year-round fertilization is recommended.
Your fertilization method should also be influenced by the amount of sun that your yard receives. Many people see that grass in shaded areas often are struggling more than grass in sun and assume that the shaded areas need more fertilizer, but this is not the case. When you fertilize, feed less to the shaded areas and more to the sunny ones. If you are going to mow your lawn, you’ll want to do it before you fertilize so that you are not displacing the fertilizer that you put down.
Tip #3: Watering Your Grass
Underwatering can lead to dry, dead grass, and overwatering can lead to lawn diseases. Deciding the right amount of water to give to your lawn can make or break its quality. When you water your lawn you’ll want to do it early in the day so that the water has time to set in before evaporation, but will not be around long enough for disease to form. During colder months, you’ll want to water about once a week, but when the days start to warm up and become longer you’ll want to increase watering to twice a week. When watering your lawn you’ll want to water it long enough so that the water can absorb about an inch into the soil, this will help your lawn to get the most out of its watering and can help to make it more drought tolerant.
Tip #4: Aerating and Seeding
Aerating is a very important lawn care step that is often overlooked. Aerating pulls up plugs from the soil which loosens the soil and allows water and nutrients to get to the roots as well as gives more room for the roots to grow. Once you have helped your present grasses’ roots you want to go in and add additional seed to your lawn. Because of the aerating, the new seed will be able to get embedded into the soil, giving it a good start, and the new seed will help to fill in any potential bare spots in your lawn.
Tip #5: Treating Weeds
One of the first times you want to address weeds is before they are even visible. To do this you will want to apply pre-emergent weed control. This will help to lessen some of the weeds that come up, but once you have weeds you need to cure those that have arrived by treating the lawn with post-emergent weed control. You should apply weed control throughout the year in order to best prevent weeds from taking over your lawn and strangeling out the grass that you are trying to cultivate. Having healthy grass covering your lawn is the best weed preventive as the grass can prevent the growth of weeds.
