Any homestead or garden on a cheery site will look even pretty if surrounded by a collar of brilliant green sward . Here are a few tips to keep your lawn looking good without too much work .
Water To The Wise
Irrigating a lawn is time - consuming , and you probably demand the water for sellable crops anyway . If your lawn has been suffering , look for substitute grasses that might be better adapted to your conditions .
Cool Clips
If you have a coolheaded - season grass that does well in the northern one-half of the res publica , such as Festuca elatior or Kentucky bluegrass , fix the mower as high as it will go or at least 3 in . Taller shoot intend deeper ascendant , and full-grown flora will shade out more widow’s weeds .
Warm Tips
If you ’re growing a affectionate - season grass that does well in the southerly one-half of the country , such as Bermuda , centipede , St. Augustine or zoysia , your lawn will do better if mowed to a height of 2 column inch to force side shoots .
Slow Goes It
If you have a lawn of easy - growing native buffalo grass , that does well in the drier division of the country — hurriedness of less than 25 inches per year — mow it at 4 to 6 inches about twice a calendar month .
Let It Go
Do n’t bulge the press cutting : That ’s just more work . Whether you have a mower that shreds the clippings or not , they will shrivel in the sun , drop down to the soil , be consume by microbes and supply about a third of the N your lawn motivation in a process called Mary Jane - cycling . Do n’t waste time or money by bagging up and throwing away all that free fertilizer .
Jump The Clumps
If your mower throws out bad clumps of clippings , just run over them again to spread out them . You ’re still bring through time over make do with bagged trimming .
Achieving Balance
Be conservative when go for fertilizer . Yes , a lot of atomic number 7 will create cryptic - light-green , fast - growing grasses , but like a child on too much lucre , it will also make your lawn susceptible to diseases and bugs . Because you should be leaving clippings to feed in the lawn , only use about half the recommend pace of fertilizer . A bag with 18 per centum nitrogen is plenty .
Neutral State
Adjust the pH to an optimal level near neutral of 6 or so . You do n’t have to wait until tumble to utilize calcined lime if asoil testsays your soil is too acidulent . In fact , you may make use of the ashes from your woodstove as a free substitute for calcium oxide . pound sign for pound , forest ash tree is about a third as substantial as lime .
Seed As You Please
calculate on your position , there are optimum metre of year to manage . But that does n’t think you have to look . Anytime you see unfinished spots in the lawn , throw some grass seed down . Otherwise , weeds will get there first .
They say the gardener ’s footprints are the best fertilizer for the garden , and the same could be said of lawns . So now that thing have warmed up , kick off your shoes and enjoy that verdant lawn .
This narration first appeared in the May / June 2017 issue of Hobby Farms .
