Getting Your Lawn Ready for Spring

Getting Your Lawn Ready for Spring

Now is the perfect time to think ahead on how to prepare your lawn for spring! A plush green lawn not only looks beautiful, it provides a great place for your kids to play and perhaps, most importantly, increases the value of your home. 

Winter beats up a lawn and garden, and its maintenance materials. Check out your automatic watering and or irrigation systems, tune up your lawn mower, clean and sharpen your tools, and look over the garden lights and planters. This also is a good time to repair any damaged patio furniture, bird baths or bird houses. If you have a deck, consider giving it a good power wash, weather permitting.  

Do a walk-through.

Even before winter, your lawn may have shown some bare patches and discolored grass. After winter, your lawn will need extra TLC. Right before spring, do a walk-through: yanking out any lingering weeds and clearing away branches and sticks. Hopefully, you took care of the leaves during the fall, but if not, here's your chance to rake up the last few.

Look for thatch, the layer of dead grass that sits beneath the live grass and prevents precious water from getting to the soil. You can buy a special rake that de-thatches your lawn, which will make getting rid of the dead layer much easier. Grass likes to hide in the winter, so after the snow melts, you'll want to refresh the lawn. Think of your hard raking as giving the lawn a massage. It will help it grow! 

And don't neglect the brown grass. It might look dead, but once the warm weather and sun shines, that grass will green up--slowly but surely. Give yourself several weekends to work on the lawn. Winter is long and repairing its effects will take time.

Don't wait; aerate.

You can rent an aerator from a local business or hire local lawn aeration expert like the professionals at San Antonio Lawn Mowing, aerate manually with a hand-held rake, or even try a soil conditioner, which contains microorganisms that aerate the soil for you. If your lawn is small, manual aeration will work just fine. Basically, when you aerate, you remove "plugs" of soil in order to increase the chance that oxygen, water, and nutrients will get to the soil. Another important benefit of aerating includes giving the grass roots room to grow, making them stronger.  The best time to aerate is fall but if you missed that opportunity the next best time is spring.

Install Sod.

Before planting, analyze the characteristics of the soil in your yard, how much sun and shade the lawn gets, and how close it is to water. Loosen the surface of the soil to a depth of two to four inches. Level the soil with a flat tool, like the back of a rake. You will want to sod the entire lawn, preferably with the grass type best suited for your property.  Be generous with the watering! That way you boost the chance that they will take root and create a nice thick lawn. 

Time to mow.

After you've finished the assessment, clean up, refreshing, and aerating, you'll want to give your lawn its first post-winter, early spring mow. Make sure the blades are nice and sharp so they do indeed cut, not tear, the grass. Use no more than a third of the grass blades at once. Mow high and often to build a tough turf--one that will squeeze out weeds and stand up to drought and excessive heat. Once your lawn has grown a bit, you'll want to adjust how you mow. Mow in a different direction every time: this will give your lawn a more natural look. And be sure to leave the grass clippings, because they provide extra nutrition to your lawn.  

Fertilize.

Don't forget the fertilizer! Fertilizers, such as compost or manure, provide nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, essential nutrients for a healthy lawn. Avoid using lawn fertilizer until after your first spring mow. And even then, use discretion when the amount of fertilizer you spread. 

If you're unsure of which type to use, contact San Antonio Lawn Mowing your local lawn care professionals and ask what options are beneficial for your area. Often times, they are a great resource for explaining the benefits of fertilizer specific to your lawn. Depending on the season, and the size of your lawn, you'll want to fertilize five times a year spring being the first application and according to when the rain falls. 

Mulch.

Apply a two-to-three-inch layer of mulch, including compost, shredded bark, or decorative mulch around trees and shrubs.  When you use mulch around the base of plants, trees, and shrubs, it helps the soil moderate temperature, retain moisture, and increase good microorganisms.  Adding a fresh layer of mulch in spring will also spruce up your current landscape throughout the growing season.

All your hard work will pay off with a plush green lawn.  If you don't have the time or patience for you lawn but love to have the results contact San Antonio Lawn Mowing for a free estimate on a lawn care program that will give you results.

All your hard work will pay off with a plush green lawn.  But if you don't have time or patience to maintain your lawn please contact San Antonio Lawn Mowing for a free quote and spring time specials on a lawn care program that will show results.