Keep your Lawn in Great Condition

Todays gardening tip comes in the form of lawn maintenance. We demand such a lot from our lawns, yet expect them to look like a newly-manicured bowling green at all times. Of course, this isn’t possible with a well-used garden, but there are many ways to ensure that it stays healthy, and as good to look at as possible.

Regular maintenance is the key to a great lawn. Once a year, it’s essential to aerate the lawn, to loosen the soil and improve drainage. This can be done with a lawn aerator, available from garden suppliers and hire shops, or it can be done manually using a garden fork.  Special hollow tine forks are available, too. These have hollow tines which remove cores of soil, and are excellent for helping the soil to drain, preventing damaging waterlogging.

Another essential task, especially in the Spring and Autumn, is the removal of leaves and debris; this can be done with a garden rake, which will remove all sorts of unwanted mosses and so on, which can prevent healthy growth.The rotting garden matter can actually improve the quality of yuor lawn, by putting nutrients back into the soil, but too much can rot the grass roots.

Feeding the lawn is another important job, especially if the soil is poor or the lawn has been neglected for a number of years. Best carried out in the Spring and again in the Autumn, specially formulated lawn food, containing nitrogen fertiliser, is available from all garden suppliers. It can be either in liquid form, or applied dry and watered in; just follow the instructions on the container. It is also extremely popular to spread manure into the soil surrounding a lawn, which will pass on crucial nitrates into the grass.

Watering is a must in hot dry weather but of course, these days, this can only be done if there are no drought restrictions in force and, even then, it should be carried out efficiently so as not to waste water. For a larger garden, try installing sprinkler systems that can be set on a timer, or go round the garden manually with a hose or watering can.

Care should be taken with mowing, too. The blades of your mower need to be set at the correct height for the time of year and height of the grass. For example, the first cut of the year needs to be light, just taking off the tips of the grass.  Never mow the lawn when it is wet – both for safety reasons, and because long wet grass is more likely to get pulled out at the roots by the mower, causing damage and patching to the lawn.

The end of the summer, when the garden is no longer being used as an extension of the house due to the cooler weather, is the best time to repair a lawn, either by re-seeding or removing worn patches and replacing with new turf. This will ensure you don’t dry out areas, which will become harder to seed later on in the season.

Following these tips for just one complete gardening year will ensure that you always have a lawn to be proud of.