A lawn care company that puts quality first knows all the tricks of the trade to get your grass healthy. Timing is important, too: For instance, watering in the early morning allows your lawn to dry quickly, preventing diseases.
A soil test tells you important information about your soil, including its nutrient levels. Lime and other amendments can help balance your soil, making it more suitable for a healthy lawn. Visit https://www.primecutlawnky.com/ to learn more.
Mowing a lawn regularly is the best way to keep grass healthy and looking good. Professional landscapers have the right tools to mow your yard correctly and efficiently, removing the time-consuming task from homeowners’ to-do lists. They’ll also weed whack the edges and remove the trimmings to prevent regrowth.
Grass needs regular fertilization to grow and stay healthy. Landscapers know the optimal times and methods to fertilize turf, ensuring that nutrients reach the roots where they are needed most. They’ll also help prevent the overgrowth of weeds and apply fungicide to control diseases that can wreak havoc on a yard.
Many residential and commercial property owners struggle with a full to-do list, making it difficult to maintain their lawns. A professional lawn care service will offer recurring services, allowing homeowners to sign up for a monthly, bi-weekly or weekly schedule. This can save a homeowner valuable time and money and will ensure that their lawn is always in the best condition possible.
Lawn care professionals use high-quality products that aren’t available to consumers, and they know how to apply them properly to get the results you want. They’ll also be able to spot issues and address them quickly, helping you keep your lawn in top shape.
The best lawn care companies will provide a variety of services that include mowing, edging, weeding, soil testing, fertilization, overseeding, aeration, pest and disease management, and more. They’ll work with you to understand your specific needs and create a plan that works for you and your property.
A quality lawn care company will provide customer-centric services that focus on the happiness of their clients. This will include communication through email, text or chat, and will always be willing to answer questions or resolve any issues that arise. They’ll also be on-time and will complete all services to your satisfaction. Lawn care companies that take the time to build strong relationships with their clients are more likely to have satisfied customers and referrals. For example, FieldRoutes makes it easy for landscaping businesses to build and manage client relationships with mobile-enabled contracts, appointment reminders, automated communications and routing.
Weeding
Weeds compete with grass for space, water and nutrients, so a well-managed lawn should be free of them. Fortunately, the battle against nuisance plants can be won without resorting to herbicides. A weed control program should include improved maintenance practices such as mowing regularly, removing dead growth in autumn, and overseeding bare patches with new grass seed. Adding topsoil to improve drainage and nutrient uptake helps, too.
Weed problems often indicate that the grass is unhealthy, which may be due to poor soil conditions. Compacted soil prevents air and water from reaching the roots, and when this happens, the lawn dies. Aerating the soil and applying a slow-release fertilizer to replenish nutrients can help.
Grass seed spread by a drop or broadcast spreader and overseeding can also be used to replace areas where the lawn has become thin. These methods promote vigorous, thick grass that is more competitive with weeds.
Physically removing weeds when they are small, before they mature and produce seeds, is the best strategy. This is easiest when the soil is moist, and a tool such as a dandelion digger makes it easier to get at the root. It is important to promptly reseed a bare spot, or else the weeds will grow back.
If the weeds have already established themselves, there are many commercially available products that can be applied to the yard to kill them. There are pre-emergent and post-emergent herbicides, such as Roundup, which contains the active ingredient glyphosate. There are also nonselective herbicides such as Finale, which has the active ingredient gluphosinate ammonium. These are generally safer to use on a lawn because they do not kill desirable grasses.
Fungicides are another common product that can be applied to the lawn to prevent and treat diseases that infiltrate the turfgrass. Fungi that cause snow mold, dollar spot and brown patch thrive in the chilly, wet conditions of spring and can destroy large sections of a lawn. A fungicide treatment in mid-spring can prevent these and other diseases from becoming serious problems. When choosing a weed killer, make sure it is specifically formulated for use on lawns and read the label carefully.
Fertilizing
A healthy lawn depends on regular fertilization, which influences grass color and ability to recover from stress and prevents weed invasions. Taking the time to follow a regular fertilization schedule from spring through mid-autumn can help ensure that your yard has the strength and density it needs to resist disease, drought, pests and other problems.
When choosing a fertilizer, read the label to learn more about what each product contains. Three primary nutrients are needed by turfgrass – nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Fertilizers are available in many forms, ranging from granules to liquids and slow-release formulas. When choosing a fertilizer it’s important to select one that suits the season. For example, a spring-time fertilizer should be higher in nitrogen to encourage growth and prepare the yard for the warm weather ahead. An autumn fertilizer should contain more potassium and phosphorous to ensure that the roots remain strong through winter.
Most granular lawn fertilizers are slow-release, meaning they release their nutrients over an extended period of time, instead of all at once. It’s best to apply them when the lawn has been prepped, which means mowing the day before you plan to fertilize, aerating and dethatching if necessary. A light watering is also helpful, as the soil should be moist before applying a fertilizer.
It’s also important to know whether you have cool-season or warm-season grass, as different types require different times to be fertilized. For example, cool-season lawns need to be fertilized in the spring after the last frost and again in early summer to keep the grass vibrant through hot temperatures.
If you are unsure what type of lawn you have, you can test the soil to determine its pH levels, which should be between 5.0 and 6.5. You can do this using an at-home kit from most garden centers or by hiring a professional. Changing your soil’s pH level can help your lawn grow more easily and prevent unwanted weeds from growing in the future.
When it comes to lawn fertilization, most experts agree that natural fertilizers are better for the environment than synthetic options. Natural fertilizers are slow-release, and include a variety of sources including dried blood, fish emulsion, manure and even processed sewage.
Irrigation
Your lawn needs a certain amount of water each week to stay healthy. However, how much water is necessary depends on weather conditions and natural rainfall patterns in your area. Warmer weather and droughts will require more frequent irrigation, while an abundance of rain may reduce it to a minimum needed to avoid the formation of puddles.
Irrigation methods vary from surface flooding to deep soaking. The best choice will depend on your landscape design and the type of soil in your yard. Deep soaking, also known as saturation or soaker irrigation, involves a series of small holes poked in the hose that slowly seep water into the ground, ensuring that the root system stays well below the soil surface. This type of irrigation is ideally used in shady areas where grass might not be growing as vigorously as in full sun, and can help with soil erosion problems.
It’s also important to learn about the different types of grass that are grown in your neighborhood. Cool-season grasses like fescues tend to grow in the northern States while warm-season grasses grow in the southern regions. In addition, the type of soil in your lawn can also influence how frequently and how long you need to water it. Sandy soils can lose moisture quickly, while loamy soils absorb and hold it. Clay soils can be difficult to water, since the water sinks into the ground very slowly.
To check how far below the surface a typical lawn goes for its hydration, stick your finger into the soil. If it is easy to penetrate, the soil is moist enough; if it becomes hard and dry, you will need to water more frequently. You can also use empty coffee cans or other straight-sided containers to measure the amount of water you are using in your landscape.