Green with Envy? - Rejuvenate Your Lawn

When you pull into your driveway does your lawn make you cringe? Does your neighbor’s lawn look like a putting green, while yours looks like a wild dandelion meadow? Green, green lawns are not just for golf courses, retirees and landscape maintenance companies. By following a few simple steps each season, you can rejuvenate you lawn and have emerald green grass that will be the envy of the neighborhood.

 

Healthy lawns require healthy roots. To develop healthy roots you need to get the oxygen, nutrient and water down deep into your soil to feed your roots and encourage them to grow deep into the soil. Thatch build up will trap your nutrients and not allow your lawn to breath. One of the leading causes of shabby looking lawns is thatch. Thatch is layer of built up grass stems and roots which are feeding from the top of your lawn that have accumulated over time. This commonly happens in lawns where grass has grown tall, or in lawns that have never been aerated. 

 

To de-thatch your lawn, you can simply use a leaf, garden, or thatching rake as long as your thatch is not more than one inch thick. Simply use your rake to reach down under the thatch to rake it away. If your thatch is thicker than one inch, or you have an extremely large lawn, you can rent a power de-thatcher. Once the thatch is pulled out of your lawn, be sure to compost or recycle it. 

 Even if you don’t have thatch, the soil under your heavily trafficked areas in your lawn can become compacted. To keep your lawn breathing deep, and receiving all its much needed nutrients, regularly aerate your lawn. Typically, the more clay you have in your soil, the more susceptible your lawn is to compacting. Self-propelled units, lawn tractor attachments, and hand or foot-powered plugging tools are available for aeration.  An aerator will poke a hole in the ground; thousands of them actually, remove a core of soil and leave it lying on the surface.   Now your roots are ready to receive oxygen and nutrients to begin to grow down again.

 

Mid March to the first of April is a great time to fertilize your lawn for the first time each year. There are many good conventional, natural and organic fertilizers. Organic or natural fertilizers like Rhizogen’s PerfecTurf or Espoma’s All Organic Fertilizer frequently contain beneficial mycrorhizae and fungi that greatly help the vitality of your soil and help your lawn get the most out of the nutrients in your soil. They can take longer to green up your lawn after the initial application, so you may need to display some patients if choosing this type of fertilizer. If you wish to use a conventional fertilizer, be sure to choose one that has good nitrogen content (above 16%) and not too high of phosphorus content (less than 4%). The nitrogen helps green you lawn up, and if applied in excess, the phosphorus can be wasted and possibly leach in to unwanted areas.

 

If you are tired of pulling unsightly broad leaf weeds from your lawn, an easy way to eliminate them is with a spray on weed killer. If you want to apply a weed killer before it warms up to 65 degrees consistently, be sure to use a spray with carfentrazone in it such as “Weed Free Zone” by Fertilome. This active ingredient will work in temperatures as cool as 40 degrees. Once it is consistently above 65 degrees out, other weed killers like Bayer’s “All-In-One Weed Killer”, Ortho’s “Weed B Gon”, or any of the fertilizers with weed killers in them will work. For best results with any weed killer, be sure the weeds are actively growing before applying the weed killer.

 

If you have unsightly grasses growing in your lawn, the best way to get rid of those areas is to either dig them out or spot spray them with a weed killer like Round-up. A weed killer like Round-up will kill everything in the area it is applied to, so be careful when spraying it. After the weedy grass has been removed or died, you can re-seed the area with a grass seed that will match your existing lawn.

 

Frequently, after our grey, wet winters, you might find that moss has sprung up all over in your lawn. To get rid of it, either apply a moss killer like Moss Out or Moss B Gone, or use a fertilizer with moss killer in it. Usually, these products have iron or copper in them which kills the moss. When the moss dies, it turns black and unsightly. Once this happens, remove it from your lawn by raking it out. To prevent moss from coming back each year, be sure to add lime to your lawn once a year.

 

If your lawn has a few dead spots that don’t seem to respond to watering, mowing, etc., then it may be time to replace them. In some cases, the dead spots could be a sign of a pest or a lawn disease, so it is important to figure out why the dead spots exist. Once you decide what the spots are caused from and that they need to go, your next step is to simply replace them by either replanting with seeds, or patching with sod. Begin by digging up and removing 2 to 4 inches of the soil of the bad spots. Then add to this spot organic material to help return nutrients to your soil. You can mix together some of your existing soil and compost, and place it in the hole. Make sure this hole is now level. To reseed the spot, simply rake in the grass seeds with a little starter fertilizer, and cover with a small layer of material such as peat moss to help protect the new seeds and retain moisture. Now that your spot is repaired, you need to make sure it gets plenty of water until established. Water the spot as you would a new lawn.

Over seeding is an excellent way to revive and refresh warn out patches, bare areas and sparse lawns. Over seeding can take place in the spring or fall. Begin by mowing the lawn closely, as low as ¾ inch. Rake the lawn to scratch up some of the thatch and to expose the soil especially in the bare areas. Sow seed at the recommended rate on the seed package. Rake lightly. Top dress with a thin layer of topsoil, approximately ½ cubic yard for every 1,000 square feet. Water after installation with at least 1 inch of water. Keep the soil moist during germination and while the lawn is being established. Try to stay off the lawn for 2-4 weeks.

 

With these few steps your lawn can become the envy of the neighborhood. So sit back, relax and enjoy watching your green, green grass grow.