There are many things that contribute to the health of your grass. After over 30 years of working with grasses of Whatcom County, we have found these tips keep the healthiest lawn.
These 8 steps will keep most lawns healthy, which in addition to aesthetic appeal, will keep diseases away and save you money if they are done consistently year after year.
- Mow at 2 inches or taller, no shorter.
- Mow often enough that you never remove more than 30% of the grass blade.
- Allow the mower to mulch the grass clippings back into your lawn.
- During the dry months (July, August, September) water the lawn deeply (to a 2 inch depth) once a week minimum. Slopes and southern exposure need an additional day.
- Apply lime to your lawn once each Winter in order to control the pH of the soil at 6.6. This creates a better environment for healthy turf. Lime treats the underlying issue by correcting the soil pH whereas moss killers simply deal with the symptom.
Never apply moss killers. Moss killers are acidic and moss prefers an acidic soil to grow in. - Apply fertilizer a minimum of three times a year. (May, July & October)
Fertilize with high quality slow release fertilizers, staying away from creating fast growing turf (that causes thatch and stresses the grass), but striving to have consistently growing and green healthy turf. - Aerate and overseed with Sun & Shade grass seed & starter fertilizer. (Late March & Sept) This will allow nutrients and air to get to roots.
Leaving the plugs on the lawn will essentially give the grass a nice top dress, producing the effect of rototilling something without ripping everything up. - Apply a Grub treatment to your entire property to minimize moles. Apply between Halloween and Thanksgiving at maximum application rate for grub maintenance. This gives the best chance for control of these pests which are the moles preferred diet.
More ways to help rejuvenate a lawn are listed below.
- Treat weeds with a broadleaf herbicide in April and May. These are the months when the weeds are most actively flowering and spreading more seeds.
Proper watering technique:
- During the dry months of July, August and September it is important to water your lawn minimally once a week.
- This watering should be a long and deep watering with the water penetrating 2 inches into the ground.
- Sloped turf or turf with full Southern exposure should receive an additional day of watering. Sloped areas will have more runoff and will take longer for the water to penetrate the ground to 2 inches.
How to deal with thatch:
- Thatch is a layer of dead grass roots, stems and other organic materials beneath ground level where nothing grows.
- It is commonly caused by improper over fertilization of a lawn.
- We recommend a heavy aeration twice a year in the Spring and Fall to break up this layer of thatch and bring air, water and nutrients to the roots where they are needed.
- We never recommend using a thatcher or power rake on a lawn. This causes unnecessary stress to your lawn and removes both living grass and thatch layer out by the root. It also causes lots of debris that has to be removed.
How to deal with uneven ground in a lawn
- Uneven ground can be caused over time by: worms, moles, mow patterns, tree roots, erosion and ground compaction.
- We recommend topdressing with a ½ inch of topsoil to fill low spots followed by grass seed and seed starter fertilizer. If the turf holds a lot of moisture and stays wet, then sand is preferred over topsoil because sand helps a lawn to drain moisture better. The best time to do any topdressing and overseeding is in the early Fall with your aeration.
- If you are going to do any topdressing it is imperative that you have a plan in place for all the above maintenance or this would be a waste of your money.
- An Irrigation system must be in place if Dependable Yardcare is going to do this and a 1 time visit will not resolve this. It will need to be done annually over 3 years.
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