Lawn Care Tips For Homeowners

08 Aug Lawn Care Tips For Homeowners

While some homeowners prefer to hire professionals to take care of their lawn, others prefer to do the work themselves. Either way, it’s important to at least have an understanding of basic lawn care tips, and things that can be done to keep your lawn healthy and green!

• When it comes to the heavy-duty work like sodding, reseeding, and aerating, it is probably best to hire a professional service. Homeowners can find a reputable lawn service professional from the Better Business Bureau, their town’s Chamber of Commerce, word of mouth, their local garden center, or even their real estate agent.
• If you have a large lawn, consider having an irrigation system installed in order to save you the trouble of watering by hand.
• In order to properly care for your lawn, be sure to understand the different types of grasses and their varying needs for water. For example, bent grass tends to need more watering than buffalo grass. The trick is, as with a houseplant, to not overwater. In fact, it’s best to let the lawn endure a bit of a drought rather than overwater it. Overwatering encourages any plant to put down only shallow roots which can lead to a thatch situation which can strangle a lawn and deprive it of oxygen and nutrients. Plants that are encouraged to put down deep roots are healthier. If the grass is a bit crackly and doesn’t spring back when you  walks on it, it should be watered to about the depth of an inch.
• Composting and fertilizing also keep a lawn healthy. You can easily make your own compost from kitchen scraps gathered from healthy, non-toxic plant matter and fork it over the lawn every four months or so. Fertilizer can also be used instead of compost. The best time to fertilize is at the beginning and the end of the growing season.
• Consider having your soil tested for its pH and to see what nutrients it may be lacking. The top ingredients in commercial fertilizers tend to be nitrogen, phosphate and potassium. Numbers on the bag show the percentages of these nutrients. Nitrogen can be either a fast or controlled release when it comes to fertilizer. The fact release kind tends to be better in colder climates, like Connecticut!

Especially if you are a first time homeowner, it can seem intimidating to take care of a lawn for the first time. However, by following simple lawn care tips such as these, it can be easier than you expect!