Spring Lawn Care
A Few Tips On Spring Lawn Care
The spring lawn care you do – or don't do – will set your yard up for the rest of the growing season. If you don't give your spring lawn what it needs, you could regret it for the summer and fall. But spring lawn care doesn't mean a lot of extra work, and it will help make your summer yard work easier.
Here are some suggestions on how to care for your lawn this spring:
Raking is the first chore on your spring lawn care list. I'm sure you're thrilled at this prospect, since you just raked your yard of leaves last fall for a few months. This raking doesn't have so much to do with leaves (unless you still have a yard full) as it does with removing thatch. If you have more than a half-inch of thatch, which is leaves, stems and dead grass, it will impede the growth of your lawn.
This spring raking should be a deep raking – not just skimming along the surface, but removing thatch at the same time. If you do a deep raking in the fall too, it will make this spring step all the easier.
Another reason for spring raking is to solve the problem that some grass suffers when coming out of a hard or snowy winter. Blades can be all stuck together in matted patches. This is called snow mold, and you need to break it up by raking this grass, so that new grasses can grow in these areas. You can begin raking as soon as your snow season is over, or anytime in early spring if you're lucky enough not to have a snow season.
Spring lawn care idea number two is to check your soil to make sure it's not compacted. If your lawn is a high-traffic area, compaction may occur. Lawn aeration will take care of your compaction problem. You can rent a lawn aerator at the garden center. But many experts recommend that you do your aerating in the fall. So if your yard can wait until then, all the better.
The third spring lawn care tip is liming your yard. If you have moss in your yard, that signals that your soil may be too acidic. Grass prefers a more neutral pH in the soil. You can remedy this disparity by introducing agricultural lime into your soil. The effects will be slow to occur, but they will occur.
Send a sample of your soil to the county agricultural extension office to have them determine the acidity of your soil. They can let you know, by square feet, how much lime your soil needs. You can use your lawn spreader to apply the agricultural lime.
If your lawn looks pretty good for early spring, and doesn't show any signs of acidity, put off lime application. You can't use lime as a preventative, only correctively. If you do lime, use the amount recommended by your extension office – too much lime is just as harmful as not enough.
Spring lawn care needn't be a huge chore. It should help you get a step up on summer, though, and an enjoyable warm weather season.