Taking care of your lawn can be like playing a game of chicken with Mother Nature.
Every season brings different weather, which can affect the health and beauty of your lawn. It’s essential to understand what each season requires to keep your lawn looking its best all year round.
Here are some helpful lawn care tips on how to take care of your lawn during each season!
Key Takeaways
- A properly cared-for lawn offers multiple benefits, including increased curb appeal and extra bragging rights.
- It’s important to plan out your lawn care schedule throughout the seasons and not just during spring and summer to ensure it stays as healthy as possible.
- Aeration, fertilizing, mowing, and watering are all crucial aspects of a lawn care routine throughout the year.
What are the Benefits of a Well-Maintained Lawn?
Whether you’re the type to enjoy spending time on your lawn or find it to be a chore, maintaining it can be beneficial in more ways than one. A well-maintained lawn can provide both aesthetic and financial benefits that are worth considering. Here are some other benefits.
Curb Appeal Reaps Rewards
You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘curb appeal’ before, and there’s a reason it’s so often spoken of in real estate circles. Curb appeal is the visual attractiveness of a property from the street view and can include anything from landscaping to paint color to the condition of your lawn.
Having a well-maintained lawn adds to your curb appeal, making your home look more attractive and inviting for yourself, visitors, or potential buyers.
It Gives You Something To Brag About
Having a beautiful lawn is something you should take pride in! Show off your hard work with family gatherings or outdoor barbecues; friends and relatives alike will appreciate your effort to make a cozy outdoor space they can enjoy. Plus, there’s nothing quite like being able to say that you took care of everything yourself—from planting flowers to mowing the grass—to give yourself an extra sense of accomplishment when looking out onto your maintained yard.
Increase Home Value
A well-maintained yard has been proven time and time again to increase home value by as much as 10%. This means that investing in maintenance for your lawn now could result in higher returns if you decide to sell later down the road.
Not only does having lush green grass around your house add visual appeal but it also shows potential buyers that you have taken care of everything outside as well as inside—which could make all the difference when selling a home.
How to Take Care of Your Lawn in Every Season
Spring, summer, fall, and winter—each season brings a new challenge when taking care of your lawn. Whether you’re dealing with weeds in the spring or leaves in the fall, there are certain steps you can take to keep a green and healthy lawn all year long.
Spring
The first step in getting your lawn ready for spring is mowing it properly. To do this, ensure you have the suitable lawn mower blades and height settings for your grass type. For example, cool-season grasses should be cut at a higher height than warm-season grasses.
This mowing strategy will help ensure that your grass gets enough light and water while also promoting deeper grass root growth. When mowing, remember to always go in one direction so that you don’t tear up the blades of grass.
Fertilizing is an important part of any lawn care routine because it helps provide essential nutrients for healthy growth. Before applying fertilizer to your lawn, make sure that you test the soil’s pH level first.
Depending on the results of this test, you may need to add lime or sulfur to adjust the pH levels before adding fertilizer. Alternatively, many brands of “all-in-one” fertilizers are available at home improvement stores that already contain nutrients and lime or sulfur.
Weeds are a common problem during late spring and early summer, but luckily, there are plenty of weed control options available for creating a weed-free healthy lawn without using harsh chemicals.
Manual removal with a trowel is an effective way to get rid of existing weeds while cornering them off using mulch, grass seed or other organic matter can help prevent new ones from sprouting up in their place. Preemergent herbicides can be applied during early spring as a preventive measure against weed growth later in the season.
Summer
It’s easy to go overboard with watering your lawn during the hot summer months, but it’s important to ensure you water deeply but infrequently. That means watering until the soil is saturated, then allowing it to dry out before watering again. Overwatering wastes water but can also increase your risk of disease and insect infestations in your grass. On the other hand, if you don’t water enough, your grass will become brown and brittle — not ideal!
How often you should mow depends on the grass you have in your yard, but typically you should mow it once every one to two weeks.
For best results, make sure to mow when the grass is dry and use sharp blades at three to four inches high – that way, your grass will stay healthy and retain moisture better than if it were cut too short. Also, make sure not to bag up clippings, and instead, leave them on the ground as mulch because they provide essential nutrients back into the soil as they decompose.
Fertilizing your lawn promotes growth and strengthens roots so that it can better withstand drought conditions (which are common during summer). However, be careful not to overdo it because too much fertilizer will cause an imbalance in nutrients, leading to weed growth or even damaging plants in extreme cases. Follow recommendations from local experts about what kind of fertilizer is best for your area and how often you should apply it.
Fall
Aeration is an important part of lawn maintenance. It helps keep the grass healthy by allowing water, air, and nutrients to reach deeper into the soil. It breaks up hard soil so grass can grow more easily. To aerate your lawn, use a hand-held aerator or rent a motorized one from your local home improvement store.
Fertilizing your lawn can help it stay lush and green during the cold winter months. You should use a slow-release fertilizer that’s designed for cool-season grasses like fescue or ryegrass. Don’t forget to follow the instructions on the label carefully, as over-fertilizing can harm your lawn.
It’s important to mow your lawn correctly during the fall season to keep it healthy throughout winter and look good come springtime.
Try not to mow too short – aim for a height between 2 ½ – 3 ½ inches.
And make sure you sharpen your mower blades often as dull blades can damage grass blades, leaving them vulnerable to disease and pests. It’s always a good idea to mow up those fallen leaves instead of bagging them, too – they’re excellent fertilizer.
Winter
The first step in taking care of your lawn in winter is to remove leaves and debris from it. Removing these items will help prevent mold, mildew, and other diseases from forming on the grass. Raking also helps insulate the soil from cold temperatures, which prevents frost damage. If you have a lot of leaves, you may want to invest in a leaf blower or mulcher to make the job easier.
Fertilizing your lawn before winter sets in is vital for keeping it healthy over the colder months. Fertilizer helps promote root growth during dormancy, so you must apply fertilizer at least two to three weeks before the first hard frost hits. This will ensure that your grass has plenty of nutrients stored up for when it becomes active again in the springtime.
Conclusion
Taking care of your lawn isn’t just an annual task—it’s a year-round commitment, not something to do at the “best time” of the year”! Following these tips throughout each season will help ensure that your grass stays healthy and green no matter what Mother Nature throws at it!
So put on some gloves and get out there—it’s never too late (or early) to start making sure that your yard looks its best all year round!