The American love affair with lawn care can get traced back to Europe.
Nobles in the 1700s began planting gardens and trimming grasses as a status symbol.
These traditions carried on into the United States, and after the second world war, they became common amongst all classes.
Lawn care may be far more accessible these days, but it’s still very much an art form.
A properly maintained lawn makes our home look pleasant and sophisticated.
Meanwhile, a lawn that has been ignored can make its owner look careless, as can a poorly-maintained lawn.
The good news is that we’ve got some great lawn care tips that can help your lawn shine. We’ll talk more about them in the paragraphs below.
1. Water Properly
Depending on where you live, you may not think about watering your lawn very much. Perhaps it rains enough that you don’t feel it’s necessary.
Regular watering can help any lawn. It’s best to test the soil a few times every week. If it feels dry, you may want to water it.
The best time to water your lawn is early in the morning. In the early hours, water is less likely to evaporate, so more of it will be able to moisturize the dirt and grass.
Grass should be watered to a depth of six inches per week. It requires an inch of water to do this in most cases.
It’s common to get this amount in a typical rainstorm.
2. Weed as Soon as Possible
One unfortunate fact of our lives is that weeds grow fast. However, there are ways to deal with weeds.
One of the best methods is to go after weeds in the warmer months when they’re just starting to reproduce. This will kill the weeds before they have a chance to spread.
Certain weed killers can be useful to this end, but you’ll need to be careful when using weed killer.
Roundup, for instance, is at the center of controversy after being found to cause lymphoma.
There are organic weed killers on the market, which are much safer and very effective.
They will often require multiple uses to kill the weeds, but it’s worth it to protect your safety.
Try picking one of them up the next time you’re shopping for gardening supplies.
They can be expensive, but they don’t have to be. Vinegar, for instance, can kill weeds as easily as any patented weed-killer.
Vinegar can cause burns if you’re not careful, but there’s no risk of serious injury or long-term consequences.
3. Mow Properly
There are a lot more intricacies to mowing than many of us realize. It’s best to cut only the top 1/3rd of your grass so that it can grow back healthy.
An electric mower can make this easier. You may want to view electric mowers and study them first, to make sure you find the best one for your needs.
There’s more to it than how much you mow. It’s important to leave the grass clippings on the lawn when mowing.
The grass clippings can offer a lot of benefits for your lawn, from locking water in, to keeping weeds out.
It also boosts the nitrogen levels to help your grass grow and attracts worms to till the soil.
4. Know When to Aerate
Water is important for grass, but too much water can kill it. It also doesn’t do any good if the soil is too hard to absorb water.
Aerating the lawn can help with this. It penetrates through layers of thatch (dead, dry grass) and hardened soil, giving your lawn more room to breathe and the soil more spaces for water to get in.
5. Use Organic Fertilizers
Fertilizer is a great way to help a lawn grow, but it’s always best to go with organic fertilizers.
In the same way that synthetic chemicals might cause unforeseen consequences, putting something in the dirt that isn’t natural, and may not decompose easily, can also cause problems.
It’s more than just an issue of environmentalism, though.
According to Theridinglawnmower, organic fertilizers help to nourish plants over a long period, and there’s no risk of accidentally poisoning and killing your plants by over-fertilizing.
Plus, an organic fertilizer will make the soil healthier as time goes by.
Organic fertilizers are sometimes called ‘soil conditioners,’ and they can be expensive.
A cheaper method is to create compost and fertilize your soil with that.
6. Pest Control
The last of our lawn care tips is to be careful about pest control.
There’s a lot of emphasis on pest control when it comes to gardening, but this tends to be a complicated issue.
Having destructive insects in your garden is an issue for you, but it’s also an issue for the ecosystem.
Some insects eat grass, and others eat smaller insects. In some instances, pest issues may solve themselves.
Also, some insects that we like to think of as pests, such as ants and Japanese lady beetles, can provide benefits to our lawn. They can still be very annoying to people, though.
The Best Lawn Care Tips
There are many great lawn care tips out there to help you maintain a truly healthy garden.
We’ve mentioned only some of these tips in the paragraphs above, but there are plenty more out there.
We encourage you to do more research on your own if you’re interested.
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