Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers

Basics of Lawn Care

Doctors tell us that good eating habits and regular exercise is practicing preventive medicine because these habits keep us healthy. The same is true for your lawn because by keeping it healthy you eliminate conditions that are favorable for weeds to grow and for diseases to develop. If your lawn grows thick and healthy there's no space for weeds.

Take a walk around your lawn and notice its overall appearance. Are some areas doing better than others? For example you might find patches of thick turf in the front yard that runs into less healthy or weed-filled areas along the side of the house. Perhaps there's one area where grass never grows no matter how much fertilizer and seed you lay down. Or you might find moss where grass never seems to grow on the north side of the house in a damp area shaded by a large tree. Part of your lawn that is choked with weeds might be downwind of a vacant lot that's filled with overgrowth and weeds. The point of all this is there's a reason for the success and failure of your lawn in these areas. Much of its success depends on where the lawn is, how much sunlight it gets, and the amount of water and nutrients it receives.

Getting Lawn in Shape and Maintaining It

In early spring when the ground is dry give the lawn a thorough raking to remove leaves, twigs and sticks and other dropping i.e. pine cones and needles. Then give it a second raking to aerate the soil or break up any dead or matted grass and increase the supply of oxygen to the grass roots.

If you don't know what kind of grass you have take a sample to a local nursery or lawn center and ask them to identify it. Knowing the type of grass tells you its proper mowing height. For example, tall fescues and Kentucky blue grasses are cool season growing grasses with deep root systems requiring less water and should be cut to 2 1/2-inches. Zoysia grass is a warm season grass that should be cut shorter.

Give the lawn a good hair cut by making sure your lawn mower blade is sharp. A sharp blade cuts evenly and does not tear off the tops of the grass blades. Don't mow wet grass because the blades of grass will be torn and not sharply cut. The rule of thumb is to cut no more than one third of the grass height at any one time.

If the lawn has been untended and it has grown tall trim it down to its proper height in several different mowings. Adjust the mower blade high for the first cutting, then lower the blade for another pass. Save the clippings to shred and use as mulch but don't let heavy layers of grass clippings lay on the lawn. Remove them and use in a compost pile. Otherwise let the clippings stay on the lawn and decompose naturally to enrich the soil with its nutrients.

If you have to purchase a lawn mower choose a 'mulching mower' that cuts and chops the blades of grass and then blows the finely chopped clippings back into the lawn where they'll quickly decompose. If you already own a mower retrofit it with a mulching blade that converts an ordinary mower into a mulching mower.

Feed the lawn with a slow-release organic fertilizer that last for several months. Apply granular fertilizer with a hand held broadcaster or use a push-type drop spreader following the application instructions suggested by the manufacturer.

Fertilize cool season grasses that grow in the spring and fall early in the spring and late in the fall when the grass needs less energy. Warm season grasses grow in the summer and then turn brown and go dormant in cool weather, fertilize these grasses in the summer while they are growing.

written by Gene and Katie Hamilton

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