5 lawn care tips

In addition to giving your home a classic aesthetic advantage, lawns are gaining more popularity because of their important role in conserving greenery in urban areas. Their being environment friendly and their ability to help prevent soil erosion also result to more and more people wanting to own turfs.

An Assessment of Important Factors

Professionals in the lawn care industry initially consider important areas prior to giving you advice on how to achieve that lush green effect for your lawn.  First, they guide you in choosing the kind of grass that you will use in your lawn.  Decisions on this largely depend on the size of your area and your budget.  For some, this small but important task can be a daunting one. 

Second, they provide professional lawn care tips and solutions related to weeds and mushroom invasion. These unwanted guests grow rapidly and end up using the nutrients that would have been essential to the grasses.  They also spoil the smoothness of the lawn and invite different kinds of pests and insects. Thus, it is important that lawns are freed from these weeds.  Many experts advise the use of phosphorus-free fertilizers to nurture your lawn as this kind is more environment friendly.

Lastly, the natural approach to lawn care, like mowing and shaping, are also recommended to make your turf look glowing.

Tips in Caring for Your Lawn

Experts recommend these simple tips to keep your lawn lush and healthy:

* Choose quality lawn seeds as these provide little room for weeds from growing at all.  Also, at their onset, you should get rid of these weeds immediately. 

*  The importance of watering, especially early during the day, need not be reiterated as the hot sun may rob the grasses’ moisture. 

* In mowing, professionals recommend that you purchase a high quality mower to make your job more efficient and easier. Grass blades should only be cut up to one-third of its height to allow roots to spread out. 

* Alternate your mowing pattern as doing it in the same particular way may leave unwanted wheel marks in the grass.  Also, remember to leave the clippings on the grass as they convert themselves into useful nutrients when decomposed. 

* Make sure that in your effort of maintaining your lawn, you do not sacrifice the environment as a whole.  Refrain from applying excessive fertilizers and ascertain that your mower doesn’t pollute the atmosphere.

In summary, maintaining your lawn only involves an interplay of a little care, understanding and patience.

Composition of Fertilizers
 
The chemicals nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium make up a lawn fertilizer. Nitrogen is chiefly important as it enables the grass to get its green color and to grow. Further, it paves way for grass to thicken, to become brawny and let off density in order to aid in fighting off weeds and driving away pests. 

Phosphorus, on the other hand, is mainly used to enhance grass root growth and founding. In times of new planting and renewing old lawns, an increased level of this chemical is evident.

The third element, potassium, is used to boost the lawn’s ability to withstand diseases, drought, wear, and cold weather. During fall and winter, and even in times of new planting and renewing old lawns, one may observe an increased level of this substance.

Different Chemicals for Different Seasons

The lawn should be carefully maintained and given the essential nutrients in order to keep it at its best shape. For optimum development, the lawn needs to be treated differently on different seasons. In spring for example, it needs a fertilizer with nitrogen as this brings about the green color of the grass, which is pleasing to the eye.  When used excessively, however, such would result to outrageous growth and will be detrimental to the lawn. Thus, the action of phosphorus is needed to keep the roots strong.

Nitrogen is also found to more likely burn your lawn during summer than during other seasons. This action of the said chemical is aggravated with a drought-damaged lawn. Because of this, it is advised that we utilize “slow-release and a combination” of fertilizers as these have better effects and are less costly compared to “fast-release fertilizers.”

A fertilizer that is washed off is considered a waste and is harmful. Also, it is not advisable to fertilize the lawn during the rainy season. This is so since rain pushes fertilizers into the drainage system causing them to be applied again. We should also refrain from using water-soluble and quick-release nitrogen solutions such as ammonium nitrate, urea ammonium phosphate and potassium chloride.

Chlorine in Lawn Fertilizers

Chlorine is a popular element for pool sterilizers as it effectively kills most microorganisms in the pool. Since pools and lawns have different compositions and have dissimilar functions, one should exert proper care in applying chlorine to the latter.

When introduced to the lawn, chlorine level in the pool does not result to real damage. In fact, combination with nitrogen to create chlorine compounds interferes with the chlorine’s ability to sanitize. Diluted pool chlorine does not create much of a problem, as concentrated levels do. Such levels can destroy essential bacteria that help plants get nutrients from the soil and damage grass in the lawn in general.