subject: Taking Care Of Your Lawn In The Spring [print this page] There are many different do's and do not's when it comes to properly taking care of your lawn. This can be quite frustrating if you desire the beautiful emerald green softness of lawn that your neighbors do not seem to have a problem with maintaining.
A lawn is something that needs to be properly taken care of the entire year in order for it to look its best. However, if you had to choose one time of the year where proper lawn care was critical to how it looked the rest of the year, spring would definitely be the most important season.
In the spring, the first thing you should do as you prepare to take care of your lawn is to get a lawn mower tune-up. Most lawn mowers sit in the garage during the winter months as the grass is too wet to mow and it does not grow very much anyway.
By the time that those months are over, it is likely that it is going to need some tune ups, if not repairs. Make sure that the oil gets changed and that the air filter and spark plug are checked.
These things are the most basic of yearly maintenance tasks that will simply keep your lawn mower running. If you pass over these basic tasks, your mower will not last very long.
Even if you are too busy or do not have the proper knowledge of how to take care of your mower on your own, there are many lawn care shops that would be willing to give it a checkup for you. Of course, this will cost you some money.
In addition, it is best if you sharpen the blades of the mower while you are at it. This will make your mower much more effective.
Dull blades are a pain to mow with because they do not do a very even job and it is a very time consuming process. Again, if you do not have time to sharpen the blades yourself, there are many shops that would be willing to assist you for a price.
The second thing you should stay on top of during the spring are the weeds. Weeds are a menace to all plants that are supposed to be growing in the lawn.
In general, weeds tend to be much hardier plants than the ones that are supposed to be in your yard. As a result, they invade, implant, and spread their leaves over the other plants to starve them of sunlight and complete their take over.
The best way to take care of weeds found in the lawn is to use a weed killing spray. It is the fastest and most efficient way to deal with the weeds.
However, you may also pull the weeds and have equally successful results. Make sure that you pull the weeds well before they begin to produce seeds.
Otherwise, by pulling the mother weed, you will simply be spreading around her seeds. This will mean more work for you in the long run.
The third thing you should keep in mind is that the lawn needs to be aerated. Aeration is the process of helping the air to infiltrate the soil.
Most people aerate their lawns by punching small holes in the ground or removing small cores. Aeration not only allows more water and nutrients to enter the soil for the plants, but it can help reduce thatch problems.
If you have serious problems thatch, you may want to try raking in the spring. The purpose of raking in this case is not to gather up leaves, but to thin out thick areas in the lawn.
The fourth thing that can be helpful in maintaining a beautiful lawn is to lay down a light layer of fertilizer in the spring. It is very easy to think that the more fertilizer you lay down, the more nutrients enter the soil, and the healthier your grass will be.
However, too much fertilizer can make your lawn muddy, smother the grass, or simply overwhelm the grass. By keeping the layer of fertilizer you add light, the grass will thrive and you will avoid these negative outcomes.
The fifth thing you should do during the spring is encourage the thin areas in the lawn. Muddy paths ways through the grass are a common result of the winter.
Make sure that you reseed the areas that need it in the spring. You may even need to tie up string around it or put fencing up to keep people and animals from harming the new tender blades of grass that grow there.
by: Tom Selwick
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
