A maintaining a lawn isn’t as hard as you may think it could be. You can even make things less costly if you don’t depend on a lot of fertilizers to make things grow. You don’t even need to have a green thumb in order to keep your lawn beautiful. All you need are best practices and fundamental and natural know how to keep and maintain a neat and clean lawn.
Use Less Fertilizer when Maintaining a Lawn
In order to cut costs and to save yourself a lot of trouble and labor, you should cut back on fertilizer usage. Using a lot of fertilizers almost always make the grass grow too fast. This in turn will make them quite vulnerable to insect attacks and disease. Fertilizing your lawn annually especially during autumn will work quite well when maintaining a lawn.
Keep the Grass Taller
When you mow your lawn keep your lawn mower to its highest setting. You might want to set it at three or four inches to make things work better. If you keep your grass taller the healthier it will become. Tall grass plants will shade out the weeds thus hindering their growth. It also keeps the soil moist which ensures that the soil will have more nutrients. This will in turn make your plants strong enough to cover even the bare spots on your lawn and makes your plants more drought resistant.
Avoid Pesticides
Avoid applying pesticides when maintaining a lawn. On the same vein, you should also avoid using fungicides and insecticides. These will also kill earthworms and microbes in the soil. Microbes help promote more nutrients in your soil while earthworms aerate it thus making the soil richer.
Watch How Much You Water
You might think that you need to water your grass frequently during long dry spells. You should avoid doing this when maintaining a lawn. People often mistake the browning of the leaves to death of grass plants. This of course is far from the truth since the real source of life of grass plants is underground. Take note that they can also go dormant for months whilst staying alive.
The secret to keep your lawn green during the summer is to water deeply instead of watering your lawn frequently. Keep the sprinkler on for one to two hours to let the water reach the roots and water your lawn only once a week during summer. The key here is to let the moisture reach the roots and not just get the ground surface wet.
Use Lime if Necessary
One last best practice when maintaining a lawn is to use lime. This is necessary if you live somewhere in the Midwest or in the eastern states. Lime will counteract any form of acid rain and save your grass plants. Only an annual light sprinkling of lime is necessary to do the job right.
