Spring Lawn Care Tips

Spring is a perfect time to kick-start your lawn care regime as the grass awakens from the dormant winter period. Read our simple steps to help maintain your lawns health, plus make it look and feel great all year round. Before you plan anything, take a few minutes to inspect your lawn. It’s likely you may have a mix of moss and weeds and you may also have bare or yellow/brown patches. All suggest you need to undertake some lawn maintenance. Read on for some key advice.

Spring Flowers

 

Lawn Mower maintenance

The most important aspect for lawn mowing – make sure your mower has sharp blades. It the blades are blunt you will shred the ends of the grass. This leads to weakened grass, reducing its appearance and makes it more likely to get a lawn disease lick read thread. You can sharpen the blade yourself but you need either an angle grinder  or bench grinder. If you have a petrol mower it will benefit and last far longer if you get it services annual.y. Often it can be more effective in your cost and time, to take your mower to a local garden machinery repair shop. Last of all make sure the underside of the mower and collection bag is clear of mud/grass clippings  

Mowing your lawn

Don’t want until the grass is too long as it will be growing already! Your lawn will benefit from mowing as it helps make the lawn thicken up and discourages weeds taking hold too. Don’t be tempted to mow when the ground conditions are very wet or frosty or when the lawn soil is not firm underfoot. Ensure that your mower blades are sharp and set high for the first cut. Take no more than a third off the length of the grass each cut until you reach the height of around 2” for most domestic lawns. Cutting too short, either in one go, or gradually, will damage the lawn. If you have moss in your lawn, mow at least ½” above moss height. Mow shady areas 25-50% higher than non-shady areas, it needs more grass blade to absorb sunlight. 

First cut of the season: this can be in late February or early March. place the mower on a high setting and take the straggly tops off the grass. Don’t cut too short this time. You lawn will suffer if you do.

March mowing: keep the mower on a high setting until you can see the grass is growing consistently. Plan to cut every two weeks.

April mowing: by now the grass will be growing a lot more. It’s the perfect time to start a weekly cut. Take just a little off each time. Don’t go too short ior the grass will thin out and may turn yellow. 

May mowing: continue to cut weekly. By now the lawn should start to show a more dense/thickened up appearance from the weekly cut, helped by lawn fertiliser and rainfall/watering.

Feeding your Lawn

Your lawn will require some essential nutrients in Spring that can be purchased as granular or liquid lawn fertiliser from garden centres. Do not over apply the feed as you can damage the grass or make grow too fast, leading to a lot of mowing and a less dense lawn. Please note that Lawn Tiger’s fertiliser products are longer lasting (typically 3-4 month controlled release) professional grade and not available in garden centres. We also ensure the correct amount of fertiliser is placed on your lawn. Remember too that feeding and weeding your lawn is a year round requirement to ensure you lawn stay health and looks great.

Moss & Weeds in your lawn

Our climate promotes moss that will gradually take over the lawn. Weeds are likely to be present this time of year too and will actively start growing again, not to mention many new weeds that can appear from dormant seeds in the lawn. If you tackle it early on you can keep them at bay. Moss can be raked or scarified out and weeds removed by hand picking or using weed killer. You may find store purchase weed killers are not very effective. Lawn Tiger’s weed control treatments work as we have access to processional only fast acting and effective products. 

Aeration

Over time the soil in your lawn will become compacted, limiting nutrients, air and water from reaching the grass roots, leading to unhealthy lawn. Aeration is a vital lawn treatment and whilst it wont give immediate improvement, it will benefit the lawn long term. We recommend annual aeration but its great to do that a few times for enhanced benefits. You can aerate very small areas using a garden fork or hire a mechanical aerator for larger areas to create 1,000’s of pencil width holes all over your lawn. It may aid lawn drainage too but it not a solution for waterlogged lawns. 

Scarification

An essential maintenance task to remove moss and dead grass from the lawn, allowing more water, air and nutrients to reach the soil surface and making the grass healthier. You can purchase moss remover in garden centres and manually rake out a few days later. You can also hire a mechanical scarifier to make the job easier. Be prepared for some hard work and do not scarify earlier than March or later than May, then late Summer to mid Autumn as the lawn will not recover quickly. Afterwards, it’s recommended to apply grass see, a lawn feed and to water regularly to fill in the many gaps left from the moss and dead grass.

Patches & Bare Areas

Cutting your grass too short, shade, animal urine, insects or lack of water are some causes of patches. They are usually cured over time by aerating the soil, fertilising and regularly watering. Alternatively, replace the areas with new grass seed or turf. Grass will struggle in shady areas, so consider cutting back overhanging vegetation or using shade tolerant seed or turf to replace the patchy lawn areas.

Seeding

Spring is a good time to put down grass seed over your existing lawn, to thicken it up. Seeding can also be used where a lawn has bare/dry patches. Seed requires good soil contact, warmth (8oC+) and constant moisture for at least 24 days to have a chance of germinating. Water daily in morning or late evening. Adjust water with any rainfall you may get this time of year.

Lawn border edge repairs

It’s not too late to tidy up the lawn edges. Using a low-cost half moon turf spade, simply slice along the lawn border edge to get it nice and crisp. Consider adding some lawn edging products to hold the border in place for year round sharp edges and easier mowing too. 

New Lawns and Turfing

Early Spring is a great time to lay a new lawn either via seeding or turf. The weather is warm and wet enough for seed germination and grass growth. Especially for new seeded lawns, getting the grass to start growing before tree leaves and other foliage appears and reduced sunlight is ideal. Just remember to water the seed and turf daily!  Please note seed requires soil temperature to be 8 degrees centigrade or higher, excellent seed/soil contact and lots of regular water to keep it moist. Sometimes it can be into April when the soil temperature is high enough, especially on heavy clay soil which take longer to warm up in spring. 

How Lawn Tiger can help

If you are unsure or what to do, have tried the DIY approach or lack the time, get in touch with us at Lawn Tiger. We can offer expert advice on your lawn’s condition, recommend a feed and feed treatment plan, including specialist labour saving machinery to undertake aeration and scarification. Call us on 01203 974358 or  email [email protected]. To get started sooner, visit lawntiger/co.uk/quote and use our quick and easy online quote tool.

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