how to take care of your lawn

Lawns are great elements of homes. They are what people living in apartments and large buildings are giving up. Some might say that lawns just waste very valuable space, but a lawn provides more than aesthetic additions to a nice home. There many time-tested, age-old activities that can only be done in a lawn, and if you care for your children, or the people you live with, it is best not to deprive them of such priceless joys. A lot of people who might have the space and money to have a lawn are quite hesitant with keeping one. The efforts needed to take care of a lawn seem too hard to handle. But with the right know-how, this can actually be an easy task to take care of.
Establishing Your Lawn
There are many ways of establishing a lawn, and the one you use depends so much on the situation of your lawn, whether it is new or an existing one that needs to be refurbished. For existing lawns, that just need to be revamped, you only need to aerate it or add more seeds. This can easily be done by means of an aerator – a machine that digs holes in the ground making air more available to the soil. This can be brought in garden and landscaping supplies store, online. Once aerating is done, you can then spread your seeds. Much care is needed at this point since if you do not use enough seeds, your lawn would not be as think as you want too, if you use too much, the grass may overcrowd and end up growing irregularly. It is important to use a spreader when doing this as doing it by hand causes uneven coverage.
The process is quite similar when you are starting from scratch. The difference is you need more planning as to which parts of your lot would be covered with grass, which ones would be covered by stone or concrete. Of course, more seeds or grown grass would be needed since your lot would still be bare. It is good to consult with a landscaping architect when you are on this very early stage of lawn care.
Feeding Your Lawn
A great part of lawn care is providing your grass area with the right nutrients to is as green and as lively as possible. During the initial stages of lawn care, you would need starter fertilizers, that help seeds germinate quickly, so that they spread fast and cover your lot easily. But once the grass has covered your lot enough, you need to change your fertilizer. Usual lawn care requires only about four fertilizer applications every year. Usually after every two months during the growing seasons. It is important not to use too much though, because excessive fertilizer would make the grass conducive for fungus growth and weaken the grass.
Hydration
Grasses are basically plants, and they cannot live without water. More than fertilizers, grass need water to grow well and watering takes up the bulk of lawn care. While doing it manually by using a hose seems to be cheap, it actually could make you waste more water. It is ideal to have automatic sprinklers installed to make sure that you grass gets watered at the right time and the right amounts; you would be saving a lot on your water bills if you do not skimp on your watering system, you would also be saving a lot of time and effort when you have automated and programmable sprinklers.
Controlling Weed
Of course you want your lawn to grow grass that you intended to grow. It is annoying to find stray shrubs that could rob your lawn off nutrients and not to mention aesthetic space. You want your lawn as smooth and even as possible, without strange plants sticking up. You may manually remove weeds, but this process would only work temporarily, thus you may benefit from weed killers, just make sure you do not put too much that they kill your own grass.
Keeping Your Lawn Trimmed
Mowing is critical to keep a good lawn. You should mow your lawn whenever the grass is too long. However you should take care to set your mower at a right height so that it would not scrape your lawn and remove grass. Mowing also helps your grass grow healthily as it trims dead grass blades and allows the rest of your turf to get enough sunlight.
Lawn care can be simple and easy if you know what you need to do to keep a good lawn. To know more about lawn care, you may simply consult with your local lawn care experts and read about lawn care tips online and on print.
Finally, you can have a lawn you can be proud of! Follow Lee Dobbins to http://lawncare.garden-corner.com where you can get more great tips on how to have the perfect lawn.