People across the world take great pride in possessing an attractive and beautiful lawn. There are different methods and techniques that you can use when it comes to taking care of your lawn in the easiest and the healthiest way possible while reducing the use of pesticides at the same time. There are a lot of individuals who make the effective use of lawn care essentials like insecticides and herbicides for maintaining their lawns.
However, it is important to note that the use of cosmetic products is restricted at present. These products have been banned by several communities throughout the United States and Canada. Still, there are different ways of possessing a healthy and beautiful lawn without the use of pesticides. Nevertheless, if you still cannot do without the use of pesticides and herbicides, there are different ways of using them in the safest way possible. Just a bit of hard work and it will get easier for you to have a healthy and green lawn. Putting in a bit of effort will help you in saving a lot of time and effort that goes into the garden later on. Also, using proper lawn equipment and tools will help you save more time and effort even more. As an example, you can use a self-propelled lawnmower like those featured on Best of Machinery instead of a push mower to help you save some efforts and keep you from straining your arms.
Table of Contents
Taking Care of Your Lawn
This is mainly due to the fact that taking care of your lawn will make it healthy and attractive. Remember, healthy and attractive lawns are not prone to weeds, pests, droughts and various other problems. There are a number of tips that you can use when it comes to taking care of your lawn in the proper manner. We will have a look at these tips below:
Always Try to Mow High
Cutting the grass in your lawn to a height of around six to eight centimeters will help in promoting the growth of grass and in preventing weeds at the same time. Mowing high can also be of good help in discouraging insect pests. Click here for complete guide to mowing your lawn.
Watering Deeply Also Helps
It is always a good method to water your garden deeply but not very often. This helps in promoting the growth of deeply-rooted plants and trees. You should work on applying around 1 inch or 2.5 centimeters of water but only when it is required. This should be done only once during the week in order to get the best results. Make proper arrangements for measuring the amount of water you have applied to your lawn. You should stop watering your garden the moment it is full. Beware not to over-water your lawn as excessive water can starve the soil of essential oxygen and can even cause different types of diseases.
Feeding and Aerating are Important Activities
If you are really looking forward to taking care of your lawn in the most perfect and beneficial manner then do not forget to feed and aerate it from time to time. Feeding the lawn means filling it up with compost and other essential nutrients. Allow grass clippings to stay on the lawn ground in order to provide it with important nutrients. Aerating compacted soil, especially during fall, can help air; nutrients and water reach the roots of the plants very easily. This will further help in safeguarding the health of the plants and the trees in your garden while giving your lawn an aesthetically appealing environment.
Analyzing the turf for all kinds of compaction issues will make it easier for you to take good care of your garden. Watering the garden two or three days before the aeration will bring out better results. Get an aerator on rent and run it through the length and breadth of your lawn only once. Once you are done with this process, apply sand or compost on your aerated lawn. Check the roots and if the results are not too good, try aerating the lawn all over again. This is one process that will not take a toll on the health of your garden.
Overseeding, Replacements and Regular Evaluations are Crucial Lawn Care Activities
Try sowing new seeds on thinned regions of the lawn or you can even choose different ground covers for the tougher regions of your garden. Try replacing grass with mulch or laving stones. This should specifically be done in areas that witness a lot of traffic. Checking your garden on a regular basis and carrying out proper evaluations will help in detecting pests along with other problems very early. So, you can arrange for the right safety measures for your lawn problems before they get dangerous or harmful.
Preventing Problems Will help You in Having an Excellent Backyard
Whether you are taking care of your lawn yourself or you are hiring lawn care services; possessing a beautiful and healthy yard and reducing the requirement of using pesticides are things that require making some good decisions. The very first thing that you need to do is ask yourself a few questions. You will have to ponder on the kind of lawn you are looking to have. Also, work on understanding the answer to the problem that whether you will be able to tolerate some amount of pests and weeds in your lawn.
You should also work on finding the right ways of preventing pest and weed problems. Try being practical about the different ways you would be using for creating a beautiful lawn. Also, it is essential for you to be very clear about your requirements concerning the look you are looking to come up with for your garden. It might take one or two seasons for you to improve your garden care programs and practices for getting the best results you desire.
Mowing, Aerating & Overseeding
Preventing problems in your lawn is probably one of the best ways of maintaining an attractive and healthy garden. Always work on using the right fertilizers on your lawn. Carrying out activities like mowing, aerating, overseeding, watering and top dressing will help you in preventing problems right from their roots. If you find a few weeds appearing here and there, try pulling them out manually. Advantageous insects such as parasitic wasps and ladybugs go a long way in keeping pests and insects in perfect check. So, you should work on getting them inside your garden.
Always keeping checking for and work on identifying the different problems your garden is susceptible to. Checking your lawn on a regular basis will help you in finding pests along with other problems early on. Identifying problems in the right way will help you in deciding on the actions that need to be taken for warding off the problems.
Knowing Some Basic Things Can Help- in Warding Off Issues
It is not that you need to be highly proficient in understanding the problems of your lawn in order to take care of the same in the best way possible. Sometimes, even basic knowledge can help you in taking care of your lawn properly. Take for example; you must know that plants do not just get damaged by the use of pesticides or by the effect of pests. Sometimes, plants get damaged or injured due to poor growing conditions, road salt, dog urine and low quality maintenance.
You must also know that some insect pests and weeds in healthy gardens are usually nothing to be concerned of. Having complete knowledge about pests and their life cycle can help you in deciding whether you need to take action. It will also help you in understanding the time when you actually need to take proper action. This will help you in preventing further problems.
Use Different Ways of Dealing with Lawn Issues
Pest issues that keep coming back even after taking stern measures are a sign that you need to change your lawn care programs and practices. The changes can include things like adding line; correcting fertility and drainage problems; removing thatch and increasing the mowing height.
Use Different Plant Mixes for Diversity
If you are really looking forward to having a great-looking and healthy lawn then it is necessary for you to use a blend of different grasses and plants in your garden. This will help you in creating a diverse and widespread landscape that will serve the environment in the best way possible and will also be easy to maintain at the same time. It is easier to maintain diverse landscapes mainly because they prevent pest issues from spreading throughout the lawn. For areas where it might be a little difficult to come up with a healthy lawn, you can try plants that seem to be more adapted to the place or the ones that thrive very well in that location.
Protecting Insects and Animals is Also Necessary
As a garden or lawn owner, it is necessary for you to protect beneficial insects, birds, earthworms and various other organisms that have an important role to play in keeping your garden healthy. Predatory insects and birds feed on pests and other grubs while earthworms, insects, micro-organisms and beneficial fungi carry out the task of breaking down thatch and aerating the soil. One of the best ways of protecting these advantageous insects and animals is by limiting the use of fungicides and insecticides. In other words, you should use fungicides and insecticides only in amounts that might be sufficient for your garden.
Going for the Services of a Lawn Care Professional
For the ones who do not have a lot of time in their hands or the expertise needed for maintaining a healthy and beautiful garden, it is always a good idea to resort to the services of professionals. There are several lawn care companies that provide services in the field of maintaining lawns and controlling pests. There are even companies that offer pesticide-free and all-organic lawn care services. If you are bent on choosing the right option that actually works for your lawn, it would be better for you to follow some time-tested rules. First of all, you need to go through the prices and the lawn care programs offered by the different companies operating in your area.
Pest Management program
You need to be very clear about the lawn care results that you are expecting from your provider. Avoid going for programs that advocate the use of pesticides even if your lawn is not affected by pests. If your chosen company makes use of pesticides or other chemicals, make sure that the products are used as an integral part of an IPM or Integrated Pest Management program.
If at all there are pesticides being used for the health and maintenance of your garden, take time to go through the labels of these products for ensuring you are making the choice for the right products for the right weed or insect. Try following label directions carefully along with the warnings. It is also important for you to always look for PCP or Pest Control Products numbers on the labels of these products. The presence of this number ensures that the product has got due approval from concerned authorities.
Remove All Existing Weeds in Your Garden
As has already been said, having a few weeds here and there throughout the garden is acceptable. But this only works for situations when the weeds can easily be pulled off by hand or by using a head-held weed cutter or weeder. You can even make use of a hoe for getting rid of the few weeds you have in your garden. But this does not work for a garden that consists of out-of-control weeds. If the weeds are completely out of control, you will have to use an herbicide like glyphosate on the weeds for getting them out of the ground completely.
You need to apply the herbicide directly on the weeds. You can also choose to use a weed-and-feed item that works on your whole garden. The only thing that you need to be careful about when using these products is going through the recommended application process of the manufacturer. It is also important for you to understand that these items are effective only when weeds can be identified properly. You need to apply these products on the weeds in your garden at the correct time of the year in order to get the best results. This entails one of the most important steps in taking care of your lawn.
Dethatching the Lawn
Matted accumulations or thatches of natural debris between the roots and the grass blades can result in dead patches throughout the lawn. These patches can even appear in open spaces and in turf while offering good space for weeds to have optimum growth. It is important for you to analyze your lawn properly. Make sure to do this inch-by-inch and layer by layer so that you can easily find thatches that are just forming. You can make the effective use of a power dethatcher or thatching rake for removing the thatches. Once you are done with the thatch removal procedure, you will find your lawn looking terrible. However, it will get back to looking attractive and beautiful after a time span of four to five weeks.
Plant Grass Seeds
Applying grass seeds to all the bare areas of your garden will help in making the lawn look healthier and more appealing. During early fall or early spring, overseeding the garden with seasonal grass like fescue, Kentucky bluegrass or rye can make the lawn look better. You can even use warm season grasses like Zoysia and Bermuda during early summer. For even the application of seeds throughout the garden, make use of a spreader. Watering the seeds on a regular basis helps in establishing a great looking garden.
Mowing Grass in the Most Appropriate Manner is Important
Attractive and healthy lawns are denser and they have the ability to resist weeds in a better way than the ones that are neglected. If you are really looking forward to having a dense and healthy garden, then stay away from scalping your garden. Simply remove 1/3rd of the top grass while setting the height of grass to the mower deck. It is always good to cut down grass to a considerable height because tall grasses can shade out the weeds and can result in germination.
Keep changing your mowing technique and pattern. It would be better to change the mowing pattern at a 45 or 920 degree angle from what you did during your last mowing session. This helps in preventing the compaction of soil. This process also helps in safeguarding the growth of straight grass. One thing that you will have to work on is keeping the blades of the mower sharp in order to get the best results.
Conclusion
Out of all the above mentioned tips on taking care of your lawn, one thing that you should not miss out on is ensuring the quality of the soil in your garden. Make sure that the soil quality in your garden is always at the best because if the soil is not good, there is no use carrying out all the procedures that make a healthy and beautiful lawn. You can always improve the quality of soil in your garden by making use of popular and branded fertilizers that do not take a toll on the health of your garden.
