5 Services You Need In Spring For A Greener Looking Lawn!
POSTED BY: Scott Kaiser ON JANUARY 19, 2018
Spring is just around the corner and that means it is time to start thinking about your spring lawn care services. It is important to get a jump start on your spring lawn care with cool season grasses.
Consider winterizing you lawn before the first frost. Our fertilizer contains some of the highest phosphorus and potassium allowing the roots to grow deeper in the ground protecting the doormat Bermuda from freezing or catching a disease which can be harmful to your lawn.
How well will your Bermuda survive this winter?
After the snow has melted away and the grass roots start to wake up, your lawn will need some TLC and some food! Your grass may look a little matted and have a few bare spots, so giving your lawn a little love will do a lot for its health and beauty. This winter was (and still is) a little harsh, with a lot of heavy snow and cold temperatures, so it may take a little bit more this spring to nurse your lawn back to full health.
No need to fret. Just make sure you have your spring lawn care service provider do the appropriate treatments and services! In this article,I recommend the top 5 spring lawn care services you need. It is just as important for you to know what is happening to your lawn or what yard care you need as it is for the professionals to know.
Aeration
Lawn aeration is a treatment that will remove small plugs of soil from your lawn to relieve compaction. How does soil become compacted? Well, is your lawn the neighborhood playground or football field? Do you have a lot of foot traffic on your lawn? Has heavy snow been weighing down your grass? Any of these things can cause the soil under your lawn can be very compacted.
Compacted soil blocks out essential elements and nutrients and keeps your grass roots from air and water. This leads to unhealthy grass because it is not getting the food and energy the roots need.
You will especially need to look into aeration if you live in an area with clay soil. Because the bonds in the clay soil are so strong, the soil can become severely compacted quite easily.
If your area has sandy soil, you may not be in dire need of lawn aeration, but still consider it if your lawn has a lot of foot traffic or activity that could cause compaction. Some signs that your lawn needs to be aerated could be bare spots, water pooling, and weed growth. Lawn aeration is great for preventing weeds – just another reason to aerate your lawn!
Fertilizing
After being covered in heavy snow, secluded from the sun, and frozen, your grass is going to be hungry in the early spring. Fertilizer provides your lawn with vital nutrients that are often not naturally in your soil.
In order to most effectively add nutrients to your lawn, your lawn care company should take a sample of your soil and test it to see which nutrients occur naturally in the soil. Using this information, the lawn company should be able to give your lawn the lacking nutrients.
Early spring fertilizing is something we want to do with our cool season grasses. When the outside temperature reaches 55 degrees fahrenheit, your lawn should be awake and no longer dormant. Once the grass is no longer dormant, it is growing season and it will be time for a spring feeding!
It is best to get a few fertilizing treatments in before it gets too hot outside because fertilizer does not work well with high heat. A really great time to fertilize is right after your lawn has been aerated. The cored soil will be able to absorb the nutrients very well.
Seeding or Reseeding
The brutal winter may have left you with some bare spots in your lawn from salt or snow mold, or maybe they appeared last summer and you did not take care of them. The spring time is a great time to take care of those dead patches of grass.
Reseeding your lawn will make it appear beautiful and lush again! It is important to let the seeds grow without harsh treatments, so avoid putting any herbicides on your lawn for about 60 days after seeding. Be sure to keep the seeded area moist while it is beginning to grow. It is a good idea to watch the rain forecast too. Avoid drowning the seeds by skipping watering on days when it is going to rain.
Mowing
Did you know you might be cutting your lawn too short? Generally, you would think cutting the grass shorter would be better, right? Well having a longer lawn is actually better for the health of your grass. Having longer grass will allow for more water retention and the longer blades of grass with create more shade for the roots of the grass.
Keeping a longer lawn will inevitably lead to your lawn needing to be mowed more often, but the health and beauty of a greener lawn is worth it. Lawn mowing can begin in the spring as soon as you notice growth in your lawn. When scheduling you spring lawn care services, ask to see if they can keep your lawn a little bit longer to keep your lawn healthier.
Weed Control
Weeds, they are EVERYWHERE! Some weeds are pretty like dandelions or white clovers, but they are also very invasive. Weeds take up nutrients and water that your grass needs to stay healthy. They are like parasites in your lawn.
So though they may look pretty and harmless, it is important that you get rid of them. When you notice a weed problem, you should address it ASAP because, before you know it, they will have spread everywhere! When you choose a lawn care company for your spring lawn care services, look for a local lawn care company that will be able to handle weed control touch ups as soon as possible. Most quality professional lawn care companies should have great customer service that will give you free weed touch ups and crabgrass preventer.
NOTE* You must wait at least two months after sowing seeds early Spring before applying any herbicides. Seeds normally take seven to ten days for germination, and another month or two before making your first passing cut with a lawn mower. Allowing the seedling to mature will give it time to grow, the last thing you want to do is harm the seed with herbicides preventing the seed to germinate.
Watering is also very essential to seed germination, it is important to water in the morning, afternoon and early evening and every time in between, whenever you believe the soil is dry to the touch water the seeds, dry soil will not help your seeds to germinate, [a dry seed is a dormant seed].
