Mowing, watering, fertilizing, weed control, and other lawn care services keep your property looking healthy and well-maintained. They also prevent and treat lawn diseases like brown patches.
Aerate your soil to make it easier for nutrients, water, and oxygen to reach grass roots. Don’t bag your clippings—they decompose and add nitrogen. Visit https://www.primecutlawnky.com/ to learn more.
As lawns grow, they require regular mowing to keep them dense and healthy. Lawn care professionals have the right tools to mow your yard quickly and efficiently. They can also trim weeds and remove organic debris from your property. Many homeowners appreciate the convenience of having lawn mowing and other tasks taken off their to-do lists.
Grass requires regular fertilization and weed control services to stay lush and green. A balanced fertilizer program should be applied to your lawn in spring and fall, according to the season.
When the soil is at its prime for growing grass, a lawn is healthier and more resistant to weeds, drought, and heat. A lawn with good soil health will also be less vulnerable to turf diseases such as dollar spot, brown patch, leaf spot, red thread, rust, and stripe smut.
A healthy, well-maintained lawn is a welcome addition to any home and can add value. But it’s a labor-intensive task that takes time to perform correctly. If you’d rather spend your weekends doing other things, consider hiring a professional lawn maintenance service to take on the chore for you.
If you prefer to do your own mowing, be sure to cut the grass when conditions are ideal. Avoid mowing too early, or you could damage the grass roots. If the lawn is too long, it can become prone to disease and insect infestations.
Raking leaves is another tedious job, but it’s one that should not be neglected. Leaving a thick mat of moldy leaves on your lawn can attract insects and other pests, as well as interfere with the grass’ ability to photosynthesize. Invest in a good rake and work in sections to minimize bending over, or rent a blower vacuum.
Watering
Lawn care is a time-consuming chore, but it’s important to keep up with it. A lush, healthy lawn has a big impact on the overall appearance of your home or business. While many people consider mowing the most crucial aspect of lawn care, there are several other tasks that are just as important. These include watering, aeration, dethatching, fertilizing, and weed control.
Watering is a critical aspect of lawn care, but it’s important to know how much and when to water. Frequent but shallow watering can lead to thatch, which is an unsightly web of dry grass roots that develops just above the soil. On the other hand, less frequent but deeper watering encourages root growth and helps your lawn become more drought-tolerant.
The region and type of soil also play a role in your watering schedule. Sandy soils dry out faster and need to be watered more often than clay soils, which hold moisture longer. It’s also important to water in the morning, rather than at night, which reduces evaporation and prevents fungal growth.
Once you’ve established a watering schedule that takes climate and soil conditions into account, try to water your lawn three times a week for 20 minutes each. It’s best to water in the early morning, before the sun starts to heat up the ground, but if this isn’t possible, watering at least once a day in the early evening is ideal.
This time of day reduces evaporation, promotes deep watering, and keeps the grass from becoming scalded by hot afternoon sunlight. Use a tuna can to measure the depth of your watering—when it fills, you’re done! Watering at this time also reduces the risk of runoff into storm drains.
Fertilizing
Over time, the soil in your lawn can naturally lose essential nutrients. Fertilizers replace and replenish these nutrients so that your grass looks strong and vibrant. You can find fertilizers in granular or liquid form, but to use them effectively you’ll need a drop spreader (for granular fertilizers) or a backpack sprayer (for liquid fertilizers).
When to fertilize your lawn will depend on your grass type and the season. You’ll also need to know how to calculate your lawn size to ensure that you get the correct amount of fertilizer. Once you know how to do this, you’ll be able to avoid over-fertilizing your grass and under-fertilizing it.
There are two broad categories of fertilizers: synthetic and organic. Synthetic fertilizers are made from man-made chemicals and are typically cheaper but more harmful to the environment. Organic fertilizers, on the other hand, are made from natural materials like dried blood, fish emulsion, manure, and processed sewage. These types of fertilizers require more work on the part of the soil microbes to make nutrients available to grass plants, but they’re better for the environment and healthier for your yard.
In addition to fertilizing, you’ll likely need to lime your lawn and apply pre-emergent and post-emergent weed killers to keep weeds out of your lawn. You may also want to add fungicide treatments to prevent and control common lawn diseases. Seeding and overseeding are other ways to improve your lawn’s appearance, especially if it has thin or bare areas. This can help your lawn grow thicker, discourage weeds and pests, and add a more desirable grass variety with better disease and insect resistance to your landscape. If you’d rather not invest the time in testing your soil, finding the right fertilizer, and applying it correctly, a local lawn care service can handle all of these tasks for you.
Weed Control
Weeds steal water, sunlight and nutrients from grassy turf areas and their unattractive heads are a distraction to the otherwise attractive landscape of your Memphis, TN or Olive Branch, MS yard. A healthy stand of grass competes with weeds for these resources, but not all lawns have sufficient turf density to do so. Bare spots and weak areas of turf are prime locations for weeds to take hold.
A weed control plan must be both offensive and defensive in nature. The first step is preventing weeds from growing, which can be accomplished through proper lawn care and regular weed treatments.
Keeping the soil nutrient rich is another important factor in preventing weeds. This can be done through fertilization. There are liquid and granular fertilizers that work differently, but both can help keep the soil nutrient dense. Liquid fertilizers tend to be more effective, but they are also more likely to be misused and cause damage to the lawn if not properly applied. Granular fertilizers, on the other hand, are more slow-acting but are less susceptible to being misapplied.
The use of a pre-emergent or post-emergent herbicide to kill existing weeds is also important in a weed control strategy. These chemicals are systemic and must be absorbed by the weeds to be effective. For this reason, it is important to choose a selective herbicide that does not harm your lawn and ensure that the specific weeds you are targeting are listed on the label.
Weeds are a natural part of every yard, but they can be controlled with the right mix of cultural and chemical controls. A comprehensive approach to lawn care will result in healthy grass that is able to crowd out and out-compete weeds.
Trimming
Whether you live in a warm or cool climate, your lawn needs care all year round. During the summer, you’ll likely overseed, repair bare spots, and dethatch your lawn to help it stay healthy. But you should also trim trees and shrubs, and regularly rake debris from your yard.
If you don’t rake the leaves and other debris from your lawn, it can become a haven for diseases and pests. A thick layer of decaying matter also smothers grass, inhibiting photosynthesis and reducing drought tolerance. If you aren’t able to rake the whole lawn at one time, divide your property into sections and tackle one area at a time to save yourself some backaches.
Regular mowing and some clipping removal reduces thatch buildup, which blocks sunlight and water from reaching grass blades and roots, encouraging disease like fungus. If you’re concerned about thatch or have a heavy thatch layer, your lawn may need to be dethatched, a process in which small cores of soil are removed from the ground, loosening it and allowing grass to grow better.
Soil that’s been compacted by heavy foot traffic prevents water, air, and nutrients from penetrating to grass roots. This can lead to a number of problems, including waterlogging, soil erosion, and disease. Aerating breaks up dense, compacted soil and improves root growth while minimizing thatch buildup. If you want to improve your lawn’s drought resistance, aeration and overseeding are important steps. Aerating is especially effective in the fall. We also recommend an annual soil test to determine if your lawn requires fertilizer, and when it should be fed. If you choose to fertilize, a slow-release lawn fertilizer in the fall and spring is ideal.
