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Summer Lawn Care Tips
02/09/12
Josh Gray
Summer is just around the corner, and your lawn could probably use a little
maintenance before the summer season of backyard BBQs and swimming in the pool.
So what are you doing now to get your lawn ready? Lawn care is often feared
as a difficult and time intensive process, but with a few guidelines and tips,
you can easily have a healthy green lawn in time for the first backyard party
of the season.
First of all, if you can spare a minute of your time, don’t hire a lawn
care “specialist” or professional landscaper. Buying your own lawn
care products is cheap and easy, with hundreds of vendors offering products
online and in Do-It-Yourself stores. A wide variety of products such as weed
controllers to fertilizers can be found online, and usually can be found at
reasonable prices, especially when you do a little online coupon searching.
Starting off on the right foot is important to reviving your lawn after winter.
Fertilizer is the key to ensuring strong healthy growth of the grass in your
yard. Fertilizing the grass does more than just make it green. Of course it
will make it grow too, but lot's of things happen when you fertilize. Fertilizer
makes the seed germinate faster, and get started out of the ground. After the
grass has a good start fertilizer will make the grass get thicker and send off
beneficial chemicals like Rhizomes, Stolons, and Tillers all making the grass
thicker and healthier.
What most people want to know about fertilizing is - how much and when? Typically,
you want to fertilize 4 times each season, spread 60 days apart. Start in early
spring approximately 30 days before the growing season begins in your area,
continuing through the growing season until fall. Spring fertilizing gets the
grass off to a fast start giving you that rich green color everyone wants. A
word of warning though, don't use too much fertilizer, follow the listed guidelines
on the bag.
Mowing is the most misunderstood part of lawn care, and the most often incorrectly
performed part of lawn care. Far too many people will set their mowers too low
or "scalp" the lawn. How many times have you spent time mowing your
grass in hopes of a beautiful result only to end up with brown spots? Cutting
too much off the top leads to thinned out grass, and shallow root systems.
Now once you have achieved the perfect lawn, you must do regular maintenance
to prevent it from going back to being a pasture. Spend a little time and money
and keep it watered and you will keep the lush grass you spent your hard earned
money and time on. The ideal way to water your lawn is with an Automatic Underground
Sprinkler System. This way the watering is done every day that it needs it,
you don't have to drag hoses, you don't waste water from over watering, and
you get all of the lawn watered, not just where you happen to set the sprinkler.
If you implement this type of sprinkler system, make sure to water shrubbery
and annuals separate from the lawn. If you applied the same amount of water
on your landscape as gets put on the lawn you would surely kill some plants
from over watering.
Now that you’re ready to care for your lawn, you’ll need to get
your supplies. Lawn care products can be found at many local gardening centers,
or through many online merchants. Buying gardening supplies online is growing
in popularity, and made even more economical by online coupons and discounts.
For coupons on everything from fertilizers to lawn tools and equipment, check
out www.CouponChief.com and easily save yourself some big bucks. Spend the extra
cash on your first big BBQ of the summer and invite all your neighbors over
to drool over your well manicured, lush green lawn.
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