Taking care of your first lawn is a wonderful experience. The grass under your feet is in your hands today since you worked hard for this moment. Learning lawn care applications and how to take care of your first lawn will enable you to realize your plans for thick, lush grass and outdoor gatherings.
Work through these lawn care applications and tackle your lawn one task at a time.
In this Lawn Advisors article, we will cover lawn care applications in different seasons, along with the mistakes and practices you need to prevent.
Wrong Lawn Practices You Need to Prevent
Before learning lawn care applications, here are the most common lawn-care mistakes to avoid:
1. Treating Broadleaf Weeds When It’s Dry
2. Applying Weed Preventers Too Late
3. Not Fertilizing Your Lawn
4. Aerating Your Lawn at the Wrong Time
5. Watering Too Late in the Day
6. Not Mowing Frequently Enough
Lawn Care Application
Here are the lawn care applications on different seasons to help maintain your lawn and keep it lush and green:
1. Spring Lawn Care Plan
– Clean Up
With a simple spring cleaning, kick off the growth and mowing season.
With a lawn rake, remove any dead grass and any remaining crabgrass, goosegrass, or barnyard grass, which are annual grassy weeds. A lawn that has accumulated sticks or other debris over the winter should be cleaned up.
– Mow High
Check the height of your mower deck and set it to the highest setting appropriate for the type of grass you are cutting.
Cutting high encourages thicker, deeper root growth in grass plants, resulting in a lawn of healthy grass that will help crowd out weeds.
– Apply Fertilizer
Applying fertilizer is good practice for your lawn!
It not only feeds and strengthens your lawn but also kills weeds like clover and dandelion and discourages the growth of new weeds.
– Beat Weeds
Weed killer controls weeds while protecting the grass.
Spraying helps you avoid hand weeding’s potential downsides of disturbing grass roots and unearthing dormant weed seeds.
– Patch and Thicken
Use Spot Repair Products to patch bare areas in the lawn that is in both the cool and warm seasons.
Success depends on timing: Plan to plant cool-season grass in the early spring and warm-season grass in the late spring. By overseeding, you may thicken thin, worn-out grass.
2. Summer Lawn Care Plan
– Mow High
Long, deep, healthy roots that weave through the soil to find moisture are the basis of beautiful summer lawns. Mowing high- as high as you can for your type of grass- is the surest way to encourage deep roots.
Ensure a clean cut on each grass blade by sharpening the mower blades at least once during the growing season to help prevent moisture loss.
– Treat for Grubs
Apply lawn treatment if you had a grub problem the last year, see a beetle invasion in the early summer, or are aware that a neighbor is fighting grubs.
An otherwise healthy lawn develops dead patches as a result of these bugs munching their way through the roots of the grass. Time your application to go in either late spring or early summer, right before or right after grub hatching.
– Water
Provide at least 1 inch (3 cm) of water every week, either from irrigation or rainfall, to keep grass healthy, green, and growing.
To reduce water loss due to evaporation, time irrigation during the early morning (between 6 and 10 a.m.).
– Feed
Summer feeding is helpful to grasses in both warm and cool seasons. Apply fertilizers to warm-season grasses to aid in their rapid growth and prevent cool-season grasses from folding in heat and drought.
It can also help in protecting your grass against insect attacks when used as directed.
3. Fall Lawn Care Plan
– Fertilize
Cool-season grass seeds can grow best in fall conditions. Thin lawns benefit from overseeding with thick, strong spring grass. It helps in the breakdown of mulched leaves and provides your fall grass with the nutrients it needs to store up energy for a strong spring push.
By fertilizing in the early fall, you may help your lawn start rebuilding the roots that the hot, dry summer had damaged. Applying a weed and feed product will allow you to complete two tasks at once as fall is a great time to eradicate a variety of lawn weeds, such as clover and dandelion.
If you are wondering how to fertilize your lawn, watch this video below.
– Seed
It’s important to seed existing grass. This not only fills in bare or thin patches but also enables you to plant the most resilient, drought-tolerant grasses. The greatest time to overseed is in the fall because the weather is cooler at night, the ground is still warm, and there is more moisture present.
An established grass cannot simply be seeded with seeds and expect them to grow. They require full soil contact, moisture until they sprout, and sufficient establishment before it becomes too cold.
A better alternative to broadcasting is to rent a slit seeder, but those machines are notorious for tearing up the turf and leaving your lawn looking like a harrowed field.
– Mulch Leaves
Keep your grass from being choked by tree leaves. Contrary to popular belief, your grass won’t stay warm during the cold with falling tree leaves. In fact, they can be a total buzzkill by blocking vital sunlight and thinning your grass.
So, rake the leaves into grassy areas and mow over them instead of vacuuming them up from around plants or along walkways.
– Mow Short
Keep mowing your grass according to appropriate practices, timing it to the growth of the grass rather than to the calendar. Where winter fungal diseases are problems, cutting the grass a little shorter than usual can be helpful. However, don’t wait until the very end; instead, gradually reduce the height.
Cut your lawn 1 to 2 inches2 inches~6cm—or 6 cm—shorter in the late fall than you did for the rest of the growing season. Continue cutting your lawn shorter until the early winter, when it stops growing and you and your lawn begin to hibernate. Reduce the height even more for the last mow.
4. Winter Lawn Care Plan
– Limit Lawn Traffic
Grass goes dormant for winter in all but the warmest regions.
Reduce foot traffic around crowns of grass plants that are resting. Even strong grass can become weak if the same path is walked over too many times.
– Melt Ice Carefully
Choose ice-melting products that can be applied to the grass!
When applied excessively, rock salt (sodium chloride) can damage plant roots.
– Keep Mowing
Usually, by December most warm-season grasses will no longer need a mow!
By removing the extra plant tissue, airflow is also increased and the soil-to-air barrier is decreased. This prevents the grass from getting too much moisture.
– Water Your Lawn
Keep your lawn watered in the fall. You run the danger of losing the turf system over the winter if your lawn doesn’t receive at least a half-inch of water every other week.
In the winter, you can reduce your water usage by roughly half while still irrigating as necessary to supplement rainfall.
– Test Your Soil
Warm-season grasses don’t require fertilizer during the winter. This makes it the perfect time to use a soil tester to test the levels of nutrients and develop a plan for the next season.
– Maintain Equipment
Take advantage of the short window each week when you are not required to use this equipment.
Sharpen the blades on your lawn mower and tune it up. Your spreaders, dethatchers, and aerators need to be cleaned. Make sure your irrigation system is prepared for the warm weather and restring your trimmers.
Watch this video below for detailed information about lawn care applications.
Lawn Care Applications FAQ
To Wrap Up
These lawn care applications include routine fertilization, weed control, and insect control applications which result in a healthy, lush, green, great-looking lawn.
Still have any questions about lawn care applications? Leave them in Lawn Advisors comments box below and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
