A good house must have a lawn. Although this sounds typical, it’s always been true to the mind of every homeowner. A lush green lawn gives your outside space life and inside space air to breathe. An inside-out collaboration of soil, bacteria, insects, nutrients, etc. creates the perfect, healthy, and vibrant lawn for you to keep up with the neighbors. From creating a lawn to maintaining and even repairing it when circumstances are dire, you need to take incessant care to make sure you’re doing it right.
Here are 5 essential steps to follow so that your kids can play, pets can run about, and you, as a satisfied homeowner, can finally rest in utter satisfaction about nailing your lawn, or you can contact tree pruning expert Chicago:
Keep it sharp
Ripping the grass with blunt mower blades results in spiky ends that become brown in color, and thus, it’s absolutely essential to have sharp blades consistently. An ideal time to hone your mower blades to perfection is spring so that throughout the entire summer, they cut freshly. Hit rocks from time to time? Or mow past a bunch of Legos? You must keep it sharp.
How do you do that? It’s easy. Self-propelled lawn mowers are easy to deal with, so select one mower having an entirely empty or almost empty gas tank. Tighten its gas cap as an essential precaution. Now,
- Take the spark plug wire off, and tip your mower on one side.
- Take the blade off, preferably using a wrench.
- Treat the damage and sharpen the edge through a mill file, priced at about $9. Be sure to keep the bevel at 40 to 45 degrees.
- Keep the blade on a balancer, generally costing $5 or put a nail through the center of your workbench and hang the blade from it to check the balance of your blade out. If it tips aside, it means you’ll have to readjust it by scrapping a bit of the metal off.
- Refuel and replace the mower now and then and experiment it on a smooth surface to make sure its vibration is flawless before you run it on the actual surface you’ll be working on.
Remove slightly from the top
Ensure that the mower deck is positioned high to the top or second-to-top. You should take off about one-third of grass leaves when you mow, so make sure your timing is on point. Don’t trim too short, or you’ll unknowingly chop off of the firm top growth, which will mean your lawn grass will be fragile to the point you’ll regret mowing in the first place. Consistently mow and watch your lawn have minute grass clippings that decompose and nourish the soil to the core by giving nutrients back.
Mow every four to five days in early spring, once a week in summer and when summer’s ending. If the grass stops growing, don’t mow it at all.
Fertilize accordingly, but assess first
Soil kits, typically priced at about 15$, can be used to test the nature of the soil of your lawn. Carry out an intensive soil test to decide whether your soil is acidic or alkaline.
For slightly acidic soil, apply pulverized lime using a drop spreader to effectively increase its pH, and for the contrary, reduce pH level by adding organic materials like peat moss in case of slightly alkaline soil. Nevertheless, for extremely alkaline soil with pH of the limits, treat it with sulfur or iron sulfate.
Now, it’s important to time your fertilizing to perfection. As you’re primarily aiming to grow your roots and not just feed the lawn to keep it green, nail your schedule to favor the grass. Go to a local nursery, or if required, an agricultural extension office to be aware because your fertilizer schedule varies a lot with the region you’re in. In most places, it’s advisable to fertilize in the early stages of spring and mid to late stages of fall.
Corn gluten meal and other organic lawn care products can be the perfect gateway to satisfactory soil. As natural products don’t have an abundance of chemical power like the inorganic ones, they are far less risky and don’t do much damage in case of incorrect application. Both types of products are hazardous for the environment and are considered as pollutants if wasted, and so, use them to just the right amount and optimize accordingly.
Water your lawn!
Yes, it’s literally the first thing that comes to mind whenever you think about maintaining your greens.
Don’t count on rain for the water your grasses want from you. Per week, 1 inch of water is best for turf grasses, and apply it in two watering sessions to avoid water running off from the ground. In late summer, this is more prevalent as the ground is really, really hard.
Calculate water before applying any. Maybe use leftover plastic food containers instead of sprinklers. Use an irrigation gauge to measure the sprinkler output, and on the other hand, a ruler to measure the water amount in containers.
The last thing about this is having the willpower and focus to conserve water and have a sense of responsibility while watering. There’s no need to overuse water. Irrigate the parts of the lawn that are terribly unpleasant to the eyes or those that are major blocks to the landscape of the house. Even when you see a brown and brittle lawn, understand and know that even the healthiest of lawns suffer when there’s a lack of water and surely will be as lush it ever was when it will rain.
Don’t Forget to Rake
We get it; raking isn’t enjoyable like the aforementioned steps. But when a number of leaves block the sunlight or dulls the mower blade, you’ll realize the importance of raking. Take some time off and remove the leaves disrupting your lawn.
Your lawn is just like your body; it needs vitamins, nutrients, sunshine, water, and last but not least, constant care to be consistently healthy and keep growing. So, pay attention to every little detail out in the corner because a lush green lawn will reward you enough to remind you that you did a fantastic job grooming it.
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