Learn 7 Basic Steps to a Beautiful Lawn the Professionals use to Make Money

. There are many carefully guarded secrets the lawn care professionals know and use to their advantage. For instance knowing exactly what to do when to do it, and let us not forget, exactly how to get it done properly the first time. How would you like to know the secrets professional lawn care companies use to make lots of money?   All righty then, get ready to be informed. As you continue reading you will absolutely Learn 7 Basic Steps to a Beautiful Lawn, the professionals use to make money.

Large lawns will require the use of a gas-powered dethatching machine to aid in the removal of the thatch barrier. These machines, dethatcher or power rakes, are quite expensive machines to buy, that require a lot of maintenance. However they are easily rented or hired at a local rental or hire centers for around $75 U.S or so a day.

*** One important word of caution, only dethatch a lawn when the soil is dry. Dethatching a lawn when it is soaking wet will absolutely harm the grass plants root structures, potentially killing the grass plants.

Aerating a lawn, one of the easiest to remedy causes of an ugly unhealthy lawn is soil compaction. In certain regions of the country, there are soil types that contain high amounts of clay, and with heavy clay soil types. Serious compaction problems often occur.

The best way to control soil compaction in the lawn, simply aerate the lawn every two to five years. Two years in areas, that receives heavy traffic. Foot traffic, kid’s playing, and occasional vehicle traffic, all these activities significantly compacts the soil and stresses grass plants. This by the way is a very bad thing for growing a beautiful lawn.

There are several products sold today from which supposedly aerate a lawn. The thing we must keep in mind, simply poking a sharp metal spike into soil with high clay content, will only serve to compact the heavy clay soil.

What we should use instead is a core-aerator that pulls plugs of compacted soil, or AKA cores, out of the lawn, this reduces the preexisting compaction problem.

Aerating a small lawn, it is simpler to use a long handled manual core aerator, remember to keep in mind when aerating the lawn. The best time to aerate a lawn, unlike dethatching, is as soon as is possible after a good soaking rain, or deep watering before the soil dry’s.

The lawn soil is soft when good and damp making it a lot easier to pull plugs of soil from the lawn.

Homeowners and DIYres aerating a large lawn there are two options available we should use. First, rent or hire one of those gas-powered core aerator machines. These types of lawn maintenance machines operate much the same as a walk behind lawn mower. The second easy to option in large lawns, rent, hire or buy a tow aerator, pulling the aerator behind your riding lawn mower, ATV or golf cart will save a lot of walking.

When aerating the lawn Go Slow, this will give the aerator spoons time to penetrate compacted soil and pull plugs AKA cores.

Also take the time to make several passes with the aerator across the lawn, the first pass should be the same as if you were mowing the grass, the second pass, should be ninety degrees of the first pass, while the third and final pass should be forty-five degrees of the first pass.

Be prepared, the lawn will look like a pack of small dogs pooped all over the lawn. That is ok, the little turd like pieces of sod will break down the first time it rains or you cut the grass. The thing we should concern ourselves with, pulling plugs out of the turf every four to six inches apart, and a couple of inches deep to aerify the soil properly. 

Over seeding or reseeding a lawn, the best time of year to Overseed or reseed lawns is late August and early September. With the intense sunshine and stifling heat behind us, the weather conditions could not be better for planting grass seed. Milder days of late summer and early fall, make it a great time to reseed a lawn. The soil temperature is still well above fifty degrees, which is required for grass seed to germinate, establishing a healthy root structure critical for the uptake of nutrients and life sustaining moisture.

Let us review the first 3 basic steps to a beautiful lawn. Step 1, dethatch, step 2, aerate, step 3, over seed or reseed the lawn.

Adding Organic compost, compost is not just for using in the vegetable or flower gardens, a lawn also enjoys the many benefits of a good organic compost feeding. As part of any over seeding or reseeding application, spreading a thin layer of compost say three eights inch deep helps a couple ways.

First, consider using a good organic compost as a top dressing as part of the re-seeding process, this improves the soil to grass seed contact, just so you know, good seed to soil contact increases seed germination exponentially.

Organic compost not only provides nutritional value to a lawn it also improves the absorption and retention of moisture in a lawn soil. You see good organic compost helps to reduce soil compaction. This in turn improves drought tolerance important for lawn survival during the long hot dry days of summer.

Applying compost to a lawn is easier than you might think. First thing we need do is to buy several bags of high quality organic compost. Any local farm store or gardening supply center should have what you need.

The best way to apply compost to a small lawn and around planting beds is quite simply, by hand. Start by opening two or three bags of compost into a wheelbarrow. Next using a fork or garden rake break the compost into small easy to broadcast bits of nutrient rich soil goodness.

Using your bare hands or shovel broadcast small amounts of compost evenly across the lawn; Take care not to put too much compost over one area of the lawn, three eights of an inch deep is plenty.

Spreading too much organic compost across the lawn is not a good thing for the grass plants. too much compost will smother and stress the grass plants, and in the worst case the grass may die altogether.

It is easier to level a thin layer of compost after applying it to a lawn, using a long handled landscape rake with an extra wide set of teeth will save time and do a great job. Simply drag the rake across the surface of the lawn, taking care to overlap each pass. A large push broom will also do the job when a landscape rake is not available however; using a broom is a bit more work.

The final step to the composting is using a lawn roller to smooth out the bumps and improve seed soil contact. It is important to remember, only use one of the lawn rollers that you fill with water, only do not fill it. Make sure the lawn roller is completely empty to cut down on weight.

The best time to fertilize the lawn, spring is the beginning of the growing season for our lawn. However, before jumping the gun and fertilizing the lawn we should simply cut the grass through mid-May before we fertilize. Waiting until the middle of May, will keep the fertilizers we use on the lawn from simply washing away with the spring rains. Remember the ole saying, April showers bring Mayflowers.

Mid-May check the soil condition by testing the soil PH before fertilizing, and use a high quality organic fertilizer as needed.

Now that you have read, Learn 7 Basic Steps to a Beautiful Lawn the Professionals use to Make Money. You now know and understand how when and why to dethatch, aerify, over seed or reseed, add organic compost, when to use weed killers and herbicides, cut the grass correctly, and the best time to fertilize the lawn, you need to grow a beautiful lawn. Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to read this article, I hope it is useful and as always, I appreciate any comments you would like to share.

Best wishes and happy gardening. teddletonmr