Caring for Your Lawn Year-Round Daphne Al | Fairhope AL | Spanish Fort AL
Use this seasonal guide to keep your lawn and other outdoor spaces healthy throughout all four seasons.
Spring
2. Feeding: A spring feed is essential to keep the lawn looking green. There are many pre-packaged feeds available – the main ingredient is nitrogen, which encourages strong growth.
3. Watering: Toward the end of spring it may be necessary to water occasionally if the last few months have been dry.
4. Mowing: Cut the grass regularly, ensuring that the mower is raised to its highest setting for the first few cuts.
5. Scarifying: Lightly scarify — or remove the layer of dead grass that has accumulated throughout the winter — the lawn, using a spring-tined rake or a mechanical scarifier to remove dead grass (thatch).
6. Aerating: Use a fork or aerator to spike the lawn: this allows air to circulate at the grass roots and breaks up compacted soil.
7. Laying turf: Spring is the ideal time to lay turf as the weather warms up and showers reduce the need for watering.
Summer
2. Watering: To keep the lawn looking green during a dry summer, it may be necessary to water it either with an irrigation system or manually with a garden hose. However, lawns can recover quickly from drought, and to conserve water, try to avoid watering except in extreme conditions.
3. Mowing: Lawns will need mowing once or twice a week, although this should be stopped during extremely dry periods.
4. Weeding: Continue to remove pernicious weeds, such as dandelions, by digging them out of the ground, taking care to remove the whole root. Others, such as speedwell, clovers, and daisies, usually need spraying to remove them-this should be avoided during periods of drought.
Fall
3. Mowing: Lawns will still need an occasional cut on a high setting. The last cut of the year should be in late fall.
4. Raking: Once you have raked up fallen leaves, shred them using a rotary mower and add them to the compost.
5. Scarifying: Use a spring-tined rake or a mechanical scarifier to rip the thatch out of the lawn. Scarify in two directions, the second time deeper than the first; this scarification should be more vigorous than the spring scarification. Rake up all the removed thatch, and add it to the compost heap.
6. Aerating: The lawn should be spiked down to about 3 to 4 inches (8 to 10 cm) with either a fork or a mechanical aerator. Solid tining should be done every year, and about every three or four years hollow tining can be performed instead.
7. Renovating turf: This is a good time to lay turf or seed the lawn since the soil will be warm. This should also allow enough time for the lawn to establish itself before the onset of winter. Patches can be returfed, and hollows and bumps smoothed out. Sow grass seed on bare patches of lawn.
Winter
3. Start digging: During mild spells in winter, dig up areas that are going to become lawn in preparation for laying the turf in spring
SOURCE: http://www.hgtv.com/design/outdoor-design/landscaping-and-hardscaping/caring-for-your-lawn-year-round