Lawn Care 101: Everything You Need to Know to Grow Lush, Vibrant Grass
Want the greenest grass on the block? This lawn care guide has everything from seeding to dethatching. It's your one-stop-shop for thick grass that's oh-so-walkable.
You’ve heard the old expression that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Have you ever wished that the greener grass belonged to you? It can, if you are willing to put in the effort to offer your lawn tip-top lawn care.
Many things in life depend on luck: the color of your eyes, your nationality, your mature height… but the state of your lawn is a matter of effort. If you are willing to put in the time on landscape design and lawn care, your lawn might become the point of positive reference in the neighborhood.
Grass Types: Weigh Your Options
The world of lawn grasses can be split into two main hemispheres: the cool season hemisphere and the warm season hemisphere. Cool season grasses grow fast and furious in cooler weather, while warm-season grasses shoot up when the temperature rises. Each type of grass goes dormant when the weather is not to its liking.
Warm Season Grasses
Generally, southern homeowners install warm-season grasses, since they thrive in high heat and dry conditions. They go dormant and turn brown when the weather turns cool. These types of grass may die in very cold winters. Some common warm-season grasses include Bermuda grass, bahia grass, buffalo grass, centipede grass, and St. Augustine grass.
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Cool Season Grasses
Cool-season grasses are top choices in northern climes. These types of grass go dormant in the summer but grow well in spring and fall. Popular choices include tall fescue, fine fescue, creeping red fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, creeping bentgrass, and zoysia grass.
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Transition Grasses
In addition to warm season and cool season grasses, there are grasses that work in the transition-zone, doing better in cold weather than warm-season grasses and better in summers than most cool-season grasses. If you live somewhere with cold winters and hot-as-hell summers, the middle ground might be the best choice.
There are no grass species that are exclusively transition grasses. Generally, transition grasses include adaptable cool-season grasses like tall fescue or zoysia.
How to Mow a Lawn
Mowing the lawn is the landscape equivalent of getting a haircut. It makes things look better and neater. Plus, mowing the lawn properly makes the grass healthier.
Lawn care tools must be maintained. Be sure that the blades on your lawnmower are sharp before you begin to cut. Take it into a shop for sharpening if you don’t want to do it yourself.
The height at which you cut the grass is important. You don’t want to cut it too short because it makes for thinner grass and allows weeds to grow.
Type of Grass Formula
The first formula for how high to cut the lawn involves is based on the type of grass seed you planted. Some grasses can be cut shorter than others, but there is generally a range of height for each type. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, opt for the higher height in a range of height since this helps to prevent weeds.
- Mow these grasses at 1.5 to 2.5 inches high:
- Kentucky bluegrass, ryegrass, and St.
- Mow these grasses a little shorter at 1 to 2 inches high:
- Common Bermuda grass, centipede grass, and zoysia grass
Current Height of Grass Formula
If your lawn is very overgrown, the better rule is the one-third rule. If the lawn is currently 6 inches tall, don’t cut it below 4 inches high. Mowing regularly allows you to cut according to the type of grass formula.
Here are a few tips to help with mowing:
- Never mow when the grass is wet. The grass won’t cut evenly.
- Don’t regularly remove lawn clippings as they feed the soil.
- Do rake and remove clumps of cut grass. These will create dead spots on the lawn.
- Mow less when there is a drought.
How to Water Grass
To get your lawn to be the greener grass on the other side of the fence, you need to irrigate regularly. Grass may look like a green carpet, but it’s actually made up of many individual plants, each of which requires water to survive. Water your lawn with an inch (2.5 cm) of water every week throughout the growing season.
Deep watering helps create deep roots, but don’t overwater. Too much water brings in the bugs. Overwatering a lawn can also wash nutrients out of the soil.
How to Fertilize the Lawn
When it comes to fertilizing a lawn, the first question is whether to do it at all. That is, do you want to use organic products that enrich your lawn? Or do you prefer to purchase chemical fertilizer? Both are options.
Organic Lawn Fertilizer
There are free, organic products that you can use to enrich the soil under your lawn. Many experts believe that these practices are all that is needed to create a healthy lawn.
The first possibility involves grass clippings. If you cut your grass and leave the clippings in place, they filter down through the growing grass blades to decompose in the soil. This step recycles the nutrients in the cut grass back into the roots of the grass.
Another option is top-dressing with a thin lawyer of manure-rich organic compost. Layer on about ¼ of an inch every month during the growing season. The high nitrogen and phosphorus in the manure will make for a healthy lawn and also improve the soil drainage.
Chemical Lawn Fertilizer
Maybe you don’t want to go the organic route and would prefer to use fertilizer. The type of lawn fertilizer that you choose depends upon when you're adding it. It's best to fertilize several times over the growing season, first in spring and later in summer.
Early Spring
Do you get a boost from that first cup of coffee in the morning? Using a quick-release fertilizer in late March or early April is the coffee equivalent for your lawn. It gives a boost to the grass that helps the lawn recover quickly as winter slides into spring.
Late Spring
As an alternative to a quick-release fertilizer in early spring, consider a slow-release fertilizer in May or June. By this point, the energy reserves in the grass roots may be depleted and a slow-release fertilizer will restore them. Either way is fine. Your lawn will appreciate a light application of a complete fertilizer in springtime. Just don’t overdo it!
Late Summer or Fall
The heat of summer stresses grass, even warm-season grasses. By August or September, it’s time to help the roots of your grass to recover from that stress to keep the grass healthy over the winter. Consider fertilizer a part of your fall lawn care, especially for cool-season grasses like Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, tall fescue, and fine-leaf fescue.
What type of fertilizer to apply? This is the time to add high-nitrogen fertilizer to the lawn. Add about 1 pound of nitrogen for every 1,000 square feet of lawn.
How to Seed a Lawn
Lawn seeding is the process of planting grass seeds to establish a new lawn or expand an existing one. It’s how you start a new lawn or add to your existing lawn. Seeding should be done in spring for warm-season grasses and in fall for cool-season grasses.
The first step in seeding is preparing the soil. This involves testing the pH of the soil. Grass grows best in soil with a pH between 6.0 and 7.5. so do the test then amend the soil if necessary before seeding. Next, clear out stones, weeds, and roots. If removing these leaves holes, add topsoil. Get rid of clumps with a rotary tiller.
Add an inch (2.5 cm) of sand and work it in with the tiller, then do the same with compost. Then apply starter fertilizer to the area with a broadcast spreader. Rake the area, then spread your selected grass seed evenly with the broadcast spreader. Work the seeds into the top of the soil with the back of a leaf rake. Put a layer of straw over the entire area to keep birds out. Then water lightly with a sprinkler. Keep watering daily for the next seven days.
How to Overseed a Lawn
Overseeding is done when your lawn is looking thin. It is the process of adding grass seed to a lawn without plowing up the topsoil. It can be a one-time thing or a part of annual lawn maintenance. Overseed if you have bare spots on the lawn or lots of weeds crowding into sparse grass. The idea of overseeding is to grow additional grass, choking out weeds and creating a lush lawn.
When to overseed? Late spring is a great time if you dethatch or aerate your lawn at that time. These processes open up the lawn so that the grass seed used in overseeding will reach the soil. You can also overseed in August or September in mild climates. This is the best time to seed or overseed a cool-season turfgrass.
To overseed, first mow and rake the grass to make it easier for the new seed to get down to the soil below. Then test the soil and amend the soil if you need to regulate the pH.
Finally, load your chosen grass seed into a seed spreader. Regulate the spreader to distribute 16 seeds per square inch of soil. If your existing lawn is very lush, you might regulate it to release less seeds. Alternatively, spread grass seed by hand if you don’t have a spreader. Apply fertilizer, then water the lawn. Continue watering each day for about seven days.
Lawn Weed Control
The best way to protect your lawn from an invasion of weeds is to create a lush, healthy lawn through appropriate lawn maintenance. Weeds only take root if they can find space, and a thick lawn shoulders out weeds.
If you do the regular maintenance a lawn requires like mowing appropriately, aerating, and keeping the pH of the soil at a healthy level, the result will be dense, thriving turfgrass. This type of lawn naturally eliminates weed growth.
If weeds do appear in the lawn, identify the types of weeds so that you can choose the best removal method. The three common types of weeds are broadleaf weeds (like dandelions) with deep tap roots, grassy weeds like crabgrass, and sedge weeds like sedeed. You can hand pull any of these lawn weeds, or use an herbicide specific to the type of weed.
Lawn Pest Control
Part of lawn maintenance is getting rid of pests. Insects can hurt the grass and also your garden. You’ll need to use a combination of techniques to cover all pests.
Your best bet is to use the holistic approach called Integrated Pest Management. It reserves chemical use for a last alternative if all else fails. Essentially, under IPM, you need to monitor your lawn for pests and only take action when it is necessary.
Top IPM approaches when it comes to lawn pests include introducing natural predators to take out nuisance pests, using substances like beneficial nematodes against pests that live in the soil, and using sprays like Neem oil to smother insects.
Chemical treatments for lawn pests include insecticides, usually pest specific, and targeted grub control that prevents grubs from destroying grass roots.
How to Dethatch Grass Lawns
When gardeners talk about thatch, they mean the dead grass and organic matter on the grass. This can result from too much nitrogen fertilizer, shallow irrigation, or chemical fertilizers that kill off the earthworms. Controlling thatch in your lawn involves removing that layer when it gets too thick. A little thatch can act like a mulch, but anything above ½ inch can be bad for the lawn. Thick thatch creates an impermeable layer on top of the grass that can prevent water and nutrients from getting to the grass roots. It can also invite disease and pests.
How to tell if you need to dethatch? Try to poke your finger into the grass. If it feels spongy, or if it is difficult to poke through to the soil, the thatch is a problem.
It's best to dethatch during the peak growth seasons: late spring for warm-season grasses and early fall for cool-season grasses. Don’t rush to dethatch in early spring because it can injure fragile baby grass.
If your lawn is small, use a dethatching rake (available from the garden store) to pull out the dead grass. The idea is to push the rake tines deep into the grass - that’s where the thatch layer is located - to extract the dead grass. Alternatively, you can buy or rent an electric dethatcher. This pulls out the thatch quickly.
More Lawn Care Essentials
How to Aerate a Lawn
Sometimes dethatching is not enough to rejuvenate the lawn. This can result from the prior construction if the fertile topsoil was removed and the subsoil is compacted. Excess traffic on the lawn can increase the problem. If the soil under your grass seems hard even after dethatching, you may need to aerate the lawn. The proper time to do this is fall.
What is aeration? It is a process of taking out small plugs of soil and thatch from the grass. Like dethatching, the purpose of lawn aeration is to allow water and nutrients to get to the grass roots. If the roots can’t grow, the grass won’t be healthy.
The easiest way to aerate your lawn is to hire a professional to handle it. If you want to DIY, you can rent an aerator from your local garden center, or buy a small dethatching tool yourself. Aeration can really help your lawn by opening up the soil to let oxygen and water reach the grass root system. It also speeds up thatch breakdown.
