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Lawn Maintenance
Taking care of your lawn is most important for a lush green looking garden through out the growing season. Proper lawn maintenance involves mowing; using the right fertilizers in the right quantities, seeing to it that the entire lawn is evenly watered, controlling pests and weeds.
General maintenance
- General lawn maintenance depends on the type of grass chosen, cool season grasses that survive well in autumn and winters and warm season grasses that grow well in the summers and hot conditions.
- It also depends on the purpose of the lawn, if it is for evening- sit outs, for children to play and for pets prancing around, tough and hard grasses are ideal like the Zoysia grasses.
- Few other e lawn grasses are very tender like Rye grass, if not given proper water, it wilts.
- In general, proper mowing, watering, pest control and good amount of fertilizers need to be used to maintain healthy lawns.
Lawn mowing
Frequent mowing is necessary to maintain a leveled lawn. Surprising and amazing results can be seen with right mowing following all the accurate techniques with the right mowing equipment.
- Pick the right mower that is most suitable for your lawn. A rotary mower for taller, soft grasses like bluegrass, fescue or ryegrass and a reel mower on low-cut grasses such as Bermuda grass, bent grass are ideal.
- Set the mower blades to the exact level of the grass and also according to the type of grass in your lawn, mower height can be raised slightly upwards than the suggested height for your convenience.
- Do not discard the chopped grass as this could be further used as a nutrient once it gets decayed.
- For grass on the pavement sides, use a handheld edger. The wheel needs to be kept on the path and the blade at the edge in order that it gets pushed with force and pulls up the grass.
- Grass shears could be used around the trees and edges of flower beds which are not reachable easily.
- Use string trimmers to shape up and mow long lawns.
Sprinklers
Using sprinklers is the best option to evenly water the entire lawn without moving a finger and have a beautiful garden. However, they are not all that easy to use, they need to be installed right for the right results, if not they can be quite a permanent maintenance pain.
- Surface Drip Systems – These are the cheapest and easiest to install, mostly useful for shrub beds, vegetables and flower borders but are short lived and get spoilt quite quickly.
- Soaker Hose- The easiest of the lot, a hose that seeps out to water the lawn all along its length. Turning on and turning it off is all that you need to do. Only trouble with these is that it hardens because of the cold weather and later on get difficult to use.
- Underground Sprinklers – As the name suggests, these water the entire lawns with fixtures just below the soil and are most popular, most ideal for the northern regions.
- Ensure that the sprinkler systems work efficiently. Observe them run, and make changes and fix clogs or leaks when needed.
Lawn watering
It’s important that your lawn receives good amount of water. Water the lawn occasionally but deep in stead of watering often and light. Wilting leaves, rolled and dry leaves, foot steps that stay, cracks in the lawn, loss of turf cover are indications that you need to supply water to your lawn.