Summer Lawn Care Tips
By Josh Gray
Summer is just around the corner, and your lawn could probably use
a little maintenance before the summer season of backyard BBQs and
swimming in the pool. So what are you doing now to get your lawn
ready? Lawn care is often feared as a difficult and time intensive
process, but with a few guidelines and tips, you can easily have
a healthy green lawn in time for the first backyard party of the
season.
First
of all, if you can spare a minute of your time, don’t hire
a lawn care “specialist” or professional landscaper.
Buying your own lawn care products is cheap and easy, with hundreds
of vendors offering products online and in Do-It-Yourself stores.
A wide variety of products such as weed controllers to fertilizers
can be found online, and usually can be found at reasonable prices,
especially when you do a little online coupon searching.
Starting
off on the right foot is important to reviving your lawn after
winter. Fertilizer is the key to ensuring strong healthy growth
of the grass in your yard. Fertilizing the grass does more than
just make it green. Of course it will make it grow too, but lot's
of things happen when you fertilize. Fertilizer makes the seed
germinate faster, and get started out of the ground. After the
grass has a good start fertilizer will make the grass get thicker
and send off beneficial chemicals like Rhizomes, Stolons, and
Tillers all making the grass thicker and healthier.
What
most people want to know about fertilizing is - how much and when?
Typically, you want to fertilize 4 times each season, spread 60
days apart. Start in early spring approximately 30 days before
the growing season begins in your area, continuing through the
growing season until fall. Spring fertilizing gets the grass off
to a fast start giving you that rich green color everyone wants.
A word of warning though, don't use too much fertilizer, follow
the listed guidelines on the bag.
Mowing
is the most misunderstood part of lawn care, and the most often
incorrectly performed part of lawn care. Far too many people will
set their mowers too low or "scalp" the lawn. How many
times have you spent time mowing your grass in hopes of a beautiful
result only to end up with brown spots? Cutting too much off the
top leads to thinned out grass, and shallow root systems.
Now
once you have achieved the perfect lawn, you must do regular maintenance
to prevent it from going back to being a pasture. Spend a little
time and money and keep it watered and you will keep the lush
grass you spent your hard earned money and time on. The ideal
way to water your lawn is with an Automatic Underground Sprinkler
System. This way the watering is done every day that it needs
it, you don't have to drag hoses, you don't waste water from over
watering, and you get all of the lawn watered, not just where
you happen to set the sprinkler. If you implement this type of
sprinkler system, make sure to water shrubbery and annuals separate
from the lawn. If you applied the same amount of water on your
landscape as gets put on the lawn you would surely kill some plants
from over watering.
Now
that you’re ready to care for your lawn, you’ll need
to get your supplies. Lawn care products can be found at many
local gardening centers, or through many online merchants. Buying
gardening supplies online is growing in popularity, and made even
more economical by online coupons and discounts. For coupons on
everything from fertilizers to lawn tools and equipment, check
out www.CouponChief.com and easily save yourself some big bucks.
Spend the extra cash on your first big BBQ of the summer and invite
all your neighbors over to drool over your well manicured, lush
green lawn.