5 Lawn Care Tips For A Beautiful Lawn

Keeping a beautiful lawn can be a complicated matter, here are our 5 lawn care tips for a beautiful lawn.  Your lawn is essentially a growing organism that requires sunlight, the right amount of water, nutrients, protection from harsh elements and pests.  These 5 lawn care tips will help any lawn in Rockland County.

Each of these lawn care tip are something that can be applied if you maintain your own lawn. They can be done independantly from each other, or all at once. If you would like to learn more about us here at Falling Branch Lawncare visit our Homepage or our Landscape Showcase.

  • Applying winterizing lawn fertilizer in late fall / Early winter.

  • Mowing the lawn down to the proper height before winter.

  • Maintaining the mowed lawn at the appropriate height for the grass type.

  • Avoiding mowing more than 1/3 of the grass height off per lawn mowing.

  • Having your lawn aerated and over-seeded.

All Natural Methods Of Improving Your Soil & Lawn Health

Aeration Guide For Lawn Care.

Depiction of proper lawn aeration & following lawn root growth.

All 5 Of The Lawn Care Tips Are Organic!

Because of how complex a lawn can be, chemicals and irrigation are methods often used in keeping a lawn beautiful.  These techniques definitely work. All of the baseball stadiums and large municipal parks use them.  They absolutely work, but the cost tends to rise with complexity.

Where the issue arises is simple. Their one and only focus is keeping the grass looking ready for tv – not pet friendly, or eco-friendly.  The 5 tips in this article are cost effective, healthy for your lawn, and healthy for your family & pets.  Let us know if we can help you complete a project like these with a Free Estimate.

#1 – Apply Winterizing Lawn Care Fertilizer In Late Fall

The majority of our lawns here in Rockland County and Orange County are made from cool season grasses like Bermuda and bluegrass. Because of this, it is a good bet your yard has a cool-season grass blend that is currently growing in your yard.

Before the first freeze, give your lawn a thorough fertilizing to replace all of the nutrients that can be lost from the soil during the hot summer months. Once the weather turns cold, the fertilizer will remain in the soil and feed your lawn’s roots all winter long.

When spring comes your lawn will be full of healthy, lush, green grass that has been feeding on good fertilizer nutrients underneath the snow.

#2 – Mowing Your Lawn To Proper Height Before Winter

During the last month of the summer you should gradually lower the cutting base of your lawn mower each time you mow the lawn. Slowly cutting your grass shorter will allow it to winter well without shocking it by cutting it all off at once.

If you leave your lawn too tall during the winter months it will be prey to field mice and other burrowing animals. They want a warm place to sleep if they can find one. Mice can destroy large parts of your lawn by building nests. They create dead spots where they spend all of their time as well as pulling up large amounts of grass to build their structures.

Aeration Tip:

“Improving the root structure of your lawn will increase the overall strength the lawn has to bounce back from prolonged periods of excessive heat or lack of water.  Aerating is a great all natural lawn care method to introduce more oxygen which helps the healthy soil microorganisms grow.”

Make sure your grass is as short as possible at the end of the season. Short grass also protects any new growth that may be more fragile near the end of the growing season. It almost sounds counter-intuitive mowing the grass extra short.  Mowing it short forces the grass to focus its growth into the root system.

Plants that are green, or that have green leaves use their green surface to collect energy from the sun. Because of this, mowing the grass short lowers its capacity to generate energy from the sun.

#3 – Maintaining Your Mowed Lawn At The Appropriate Height

A three-inch cut is ideal for Fescue and Kentucky green. Having three inches of green allows the lawn to maximize its photosynthesis. Cut it lower than that and the grass begins to use up more nutrients to grow faster and regain that missing height—all at the expense of the underground root growth that keeps weeds at bay. And three inches is the perfect height for shading the soil surface from hot summer sun.

I hear you asking–wouldn’t longer be even better?

No, because a three-inch cut is good at staying upright. Once it gets too tall, the grass begins to bend over, mat down and shade itself, which invites disease to move in, especially in a wet season.

#4 – Avoid Mowing More Than 1/3 Of The Grass Height Per Lawn Mowing.

Sometimes it must be done.  Avoiding mowing more than 1/3 of the total grass height per trip is a best practice.  Mowing the grass extra short, or going from very tall to short stresses the grass.  When the grass is stressed, if anything goes wrong such as a temperature swing or lawn pests/disease it has a much higher chance of damaging your lawn.  It may seem like everyone in your neighborhood has their lawn cut down really short but ask your lawn care provider what they suggest for your lawn!

#5 – Having Your Lawn Aerated And Over-Seeded

Grass roots need air, water and nutrients to grow thick, deep and strong. When soil becomes compacted, even slightly, it inhibit the flow of the essentials that support thicker, healthier turf growth. A layer of compacted soil just 1/4 to 1/2 inches thick can make a significant difference in the health and beauty of your lawn. Aeration creates holes down into the soil to alleviate compaction so air, water and nutrients can reach grass roots. The soil lifted from each hole dissipate and spread back into the lawn’s soil.  Aeration may be the only task on this list that using a lawn care provider may be suggested.

Deprived of their basic needs by compacted soil, lawn grasses struggle in stressful situations. Conditions such as heat and low rainfall cause grass to lose it’s healthy, rich color. Grasses gradually thin and eventually die out completely, because of lack of oxygen, water and nutrients available just inches away. Even a single aeration session can open avenues for these essentials to reach their mark and put your lawn back on an upward trend.

Improving the root structure of your lawn will increase the overall strength the lawn has to bounce back from prolonged periods of excessive heat or lack of water.  Aerating is a great all natural lawn care method to introduce more oxygen which helps the healthy soil microorganisms grow.