Steps to a Great Lawn

A great lawn is not out of reach for the typical busy home owners. By following a few straight forward, easy care steps, everyone can enjoy a great lawn.

This article will be a summary, an outline, and future articles will go into details, also with the explanations.

Good Lawn Care
Good lawn care can be narrowed down to a few individual tools, which can be applied when required.

The Lawn Toolbox can be summarized as follows:

1. Mowing
2. Watering
3. Fertilizing
4. Insect and Weed control
5. Other Considerations

1. Mowing
Most home owners prefer a closely mowed lawn, but this can be stressful to the grass.Raising the mower height to 2.5-3.5" can significantly improve the quality. Some warm season grasses should be mowed lower (hybrid bermuda, zoysia), but all lawn grasses will perform well if mowed in above ranges. The grass will look greener and soil surfaces will stay softer and not dry out as easily.

Lawns mowed 1-2 times per week are less stressed. Tissue removal is limited to less than 1/3 of the plant height during any one mowing which is preferred (eg. grass mowed before it is 4" tall can be cut it back to 2.5" with limited stress).

By recycling grass clippings back to the soil, we supply free fertilizer, and the decaying grass invites earthworms to the surface which help aerate the soil. Grass clippings do not contribute to thatch if the lawn is mowed frequently. Therefore, mulch - do not bag.

2. Watering
As principle, an established lawn should be watered infrequently but deeply, such as one per week for 2 hours rather than 15 minutes every morning. This applies for all grass type and climates you garden in.

Usually one (1) inch of water per application is enough to thoroughly wet the root zone to a dept of 8-10". Then do not water again until the top soil layers dry. A typical spinkler attached to a garden hose using household water pressure takes 1-2 hours to apply this much water. Heavy clay soil will not absorb water as fast and the 1" of water may need to be applied in sequential smaller 15 minutes intervals until enough water has been applied.

In hot climates during summer, evaporation and transpiration are faster, and watering frequency may need to be increased to 2-4 times per week, but still make sure that each application is thorough and deep. This will encourage deep roots.

Watering frequently and shallowly will result in a shallow rooted turf which suffers when the top soil layers consistently dries out.

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