With the summer season fast approaching, we all well know that hot and dry days are inescapable. Unfortunately, many lawns seem to take the brunt of the heat. With the right approach, your lawn can stay green as can be.
Aside from improving curb appeal, a healthy and thick lawn provides homeowners many other benefits. For one, it helps create a cooling effect for your home, which is especially helpful during the warm season. In fact, surface air temperatures over lawns stay up to 10 to 14 degrees cooler than over cement or asphalt.
Lawn grass also helps decrease air and noise pollution. Maintaining a green lawn does not require a flood of chemicals. To a great extent, the health of a lawn does not depend on the amount of work you put into it. Rather, it is when and how you do it.
Here are the major components of lawn maintenance:
Watering
Watering a lawn needs to be deep and infrequent. Frequent and shallow waterings encourage short and weaker root systems. These can cause the grass to stress out during a dry spell. Instead, you should water enough to soak at least 15 to 20 cm deep and encourage healthier root growth.
Before running to buy that Grundfos pump for sale, it is important also to note that watering needs vary between different types of soil. As a general rule, however, you need to water until there is about 2.5 to 3.25 cm of water above the ground surface.
The best time to water is early, between six to ten in the morning. The cooler temperature and calmer breeze help keep water loss from evaporation to a minimum. Wasteful evaporation happens when watering is done in the afternoon.
While choosing to water in the evening and keep lawns wet overnight can make them susceptible to diseases, like fungus.
Mowing
The golden rule in mowing is to never cut off more than a third of the grass blades at once. During the hottest days of summer, it is best to leave around 10 cm of the grass plant after a cut. This may seem long, however, taller grass retains more water and will help keep the soil cool.
In winter, spring and fall, you can mow shorter than 10 cm. While it is tempting to go fast when mowing, lawn care experts recommend keeping the speed slower to avoid uneven and sloppy results. Mowing patterns should also be varied to help the grass grow more evenly.
For instance, if the mowing pattern from last week was from north to south, make sure to cut from east to west on the next.
Weeding
Weeding is an ongoing process. Some homeowners opt to weed only over the weekend. This, however, creates a risk of weed roots growing deep and strong. A better strategy would be to weed a little every day. The best time to attack them is in the first months of spring and summer season.
Weeds pop up even in healthy lawns. For the most part, there is nothing to worry about as grasses can be extremely competitive and a healthy lawn will crowd out most of the weeds itself. On the other hand, a larger weed problem means that the lawn is weaker than it should be.
Homeowners should take time to remove the weeds properly to ensure that they do not return. To do this, it is important to pull out the entire root system and not just the top of the weed. Once pulled out, do not let them sit around on bare soil as they can easily find their way into the ground.
Maintaining a lush and good-looking lawn actually takes lesser time and effort by simply following the guidelines above. Follow the rules of watering and mowing to reward yourself with a healthy lawn that can take care of weeds itself.
