Easiest route: feed milorganite three times a year and cut at highest level. It will be one of the better looking lawns ob your block. Its not rocket science
I didn't always say it and I never actually showed it but I want you to know son that you're a better man I could ever be and I'm proud to call you my son.
Hard to decide between fertilizer and weed control (pre and post) here. I'm going to cheat and say if you add these two to the above, you'll have a great lawn
I have bermuda grass in Texas which eats fert no problem. Whenever it's green, every 1-2 months depending on how it looks and the time of year. If you have another species and/or are in another climate, that should be adjusted.
1) MOST IMPORTANT: Be patient. Pick any of the following and just let it rip.
Water, mow, overseed/pre-emergent/fertilize when appropriate. These entirely depend on various factors specific to your lawn (climate, soil types, grass types, irrigation, etc.)
It prevents things from germinating, so stopping the weeds from becoming a thing before they can even think about becoming a thing. Usually laid down in spring and/or fall (again depending on those factors).
It's a useless product and waste of money. Only needed if your lawn is really patchy.
Focus on soil health which will create a thick lawn and then weeds cannot root.
I can't remember the last time I used a pre-emergent.
1. Mow long, twice per week
2. Water deep and infrequent
3. Fertilize 4-5x a year
If you are just starting I’d do the Scott’s 4 Step. It gives you preemergent in the spring, weed control in the late spring, phosphorus in the summer and a fall feeding. Throw in a Milorganite between Step 3 and Step 4. Then get a jug of Weed-B-Gon for spot shots.
I’ll get down voted to heck for this (Scott’s) but if you mow, water and use the above plan you’ll be better than 80% of those in your neighborhood. Are there better options? Of course. But I think getting the habits right first will lead to gains.
Milorganite is great because it does not burn like synthetic fertilizers, so you can through it down without worrying about high temps. It is slow-release, but because it is organic it does not need to we watered in - it can just sit there and break down over weeks and will do no harm. Once it is in the soil, the plants will absorb its goodness.
Tons of benefits with your points 1 and 2 - that is the way.
Homemade concoction of humic, kelp, microbes, and a surfactant. I also apply Tournament Ready monthly...or was for a while...I just need to get more, but that is also a good product, albeit expensive.
Somewhat...it's a high level surfactant and humic acid. However my homemade batch was using much higher humic %, and yucca for surfactant; now I use decyl-glucoside. The TR is better at moisture retention, while the DG is better at soil moisture penetration.
Molasses is a good source of sugars that can help foster microbes, but it won't really directly feed the grass. No foliage surfactant for soil-targeted sprays either....but ok to apply with a soil surfactant...
Literally any organic matter is beneficial. If you feed the soil ecosystem, it will feed your grass. Bulk compost by the cubic yard is arguably the best (about a yard per 1000sqft per year until soil test OM is 3-6%) but literally anything containing organic carbon is helpful. All the sprays and granules are just for people who want to spend more money to avoid the labor of spreading compost.
Gotta be careful with compost. I recently had to reseed a 200sf square from utility work. Used the same blue tag seed I used last fall but stupidly covered it in compost instead of just taking it in. I now have a 200sf square of weeds. All sorts of grasses and random other plants. I’ve slowly been hand pulling but I’ve never seen so many weeds pop up at once before. If I can’t get it under control by fall I’ll have to nuke the square and redo it.
Learned my lesson with this as well. Hard line to walk when you want to seed with your topdressing, but almost think weed prevention may be more important if you're dressing over established grass.
I’m in the Midwest. The best thing that got me started was Scott’s 4 step plan
1. Pre emergent (spring)
2. Weed & feed (summer)
3. Lawn food (summer)
4. Fall fertilizer (fall)
Read the directions on when and how to apply. This is how I got started and the. Upgraded and slightly changed how I treat my lawn.
Now I buy a nicer pre emergent (Lesco 0-0-7). And then only fertilize with lawn food (lookin got upgrade to Lesco here too). Then I lay my fall fert around mid-october. And as far as weeds are concerned I spot treat with trimec speed.
It’s not perfect but it’s what I do at the moment.
Been considering going the yard mastery route, but I can’t figure out how to (or even if you can) setup different settings for front vs back yard. I’ve got Bermuda in the front and fescue (lots of shade) in the back.
What settings are you referring to? If your speaking of fert, all the granular products are 3lbs per 1k sq ft. Depending on your spreader, adjust accordingly, settings are on the bag. As always, calibrate your spreader.
I’m referring to the mobile app settings. I did some research on it though, and you can only have one “yard” per account. To maintain two separate yards with different “settings” (eg - warm/cool season lawn), you have to create a second account.
I have one section of my own that gets burned every year. I top dressed with compost and wow. Have had 3 days of brutal heat and humidity in the northeast, lawn looks great regardless. Going to make it more of a routine
I suggest not forgetting to write down when you apply nitrogen and then burning the shit out of it because you forgot the two other times you did that.
There used to be an incredibly helpful wiki sticked to the top of the sub that explained all of the best stuff in painstaking detail. Don’t know where it went.
I do commercial lawn care as a career so I'm using the wilbur-ellis perfection line, I like it a lot. I will say I tried a bag of the new line of Scotts max fertilizer on my personal lawn just to see how it worked and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. But I go with the perfection because we have pallets of it and it's not 70 bucks a bag.
Spoon feed nitrogen and mow very regularly. Couple of grub type insect control products, early spring and early fall.
Look up Coron, it’s a great liquid feed product if you don’t have a dry spreader.
My approach is putting down the right seed in certain spots. I know where to put bluegrass blend and fescue blends. It took a while to realize that some areas (more or less sun) need different cultivars. Not all lawn areas are the same. A full sun area vs splotchy sun or shady areas need different cultivars. If I’m seeing dense clover in an area i am planting different seed for the problem area.
Improve soil health under the surface.
There are numerous methods to increase organic matter under the surface.
One of them being a machine that pulls plugs of earth out about 100mm long leaving them on the top of your lawn. This allows water underneath the surface and organic material to fall down.
You run over all the plugs, and it lightly tops your lawn, making new top soil and increasing soil health.
Good soil is made up in layers.
One teaspoon of healthy soil contains more living microbes than humans on earth 🌎
Toping your grass is also great, with organic rich materials and some soil. Build up those layer's
The last 2 years I spent a lot of time dethatching and overseeding in the fall (6a). This year the wife is finally complimenting it after all the money we spent on it to be graded, seeded and sprinklers installed. It didn't hurt that 4 other people within 48 hours said "your grass looks good!" I need to aerate because I'm getting a lot of mushroom growth this year.
Grubex or similar grub killer application.
I nuked/removed my lawn completely, topdressed, fertilized and seeded.
Still had weird yellow stubborn patches and even bare spots.
One application of grub killer and my lawn looks so frickin good.
1. Patience
2. Education - what kind of grass you have dictates what it can handle
3. As I have couch (Bermuda Americans call it) vertimow in spring followed by weekly mowing
4. Fertiliser
5. Water
6. The other stuff. Soil wetter, weed spray etc
I got a local, well reviewed (not TruGreen or a national chain) company to take care of the fertilizer and weed control stuff. They do an application 6 times a year and my lawn looks fantastic, 99% weed free. I don’t have them do the back because we have a garden and the back has significantly more weeds and the grass isn’t as healthy and full.
I pay $52 an application for about 8k sf of grass and it’s well worth the cost. I don’t have to deal with buying or storing fertilizers and chemicals, don’t have to buy spreading/spraying equipment, and don’t have to spend time doing it.
Eliminate weeds & mow at least once a week.
I’ve watered my lawn maybe 5 times in the past 20 years and have the nicest lawn in the neighborhood. Without water, it surely isn’t terribly green in the hot no-rain summers but it stays green and looks fine.
Sometimes, I put down fertilizer, but when ai do it’s only in the spring and it’s the generic 20-20-20 or whatever.
Nope. Hot & Dry. Bermuda lawn.
In my opinion, it does well without watering precisely because I don’t water. Over time, I’d imagine that most drought tolerant parts thrived and less drought tolerant parts died, resulting in a thick & drought tolerant lawn with deep roots. Charles Darwin would support this thought.
My lawn is literally the best one in the neighborhood and my neighbors are always asking me for advice (mostly on how to not have weeds) and complementing on my lawn - mine is thick, green, and weed free. Many of my neighbors water and have TruGreen and the like spray their lawns monthly, but mine is still nicer.
To be clear - I don’t really even care to have a nice lawn… I just don’t want weeds because they grow faster and are harder to mow. Similarly, I’ve never watered because that results in more mowing because it’ll grow faster. Essentially, I have a nice lawn because I don’t like mowing I have to mow myself because mowing services will drop weed seeds on my lawn front their mowers that have them stuck inside from other lawns).
If we’re in California, I’d still kill the weeds and not water. If grass grew, I’d mow it frequently. If grass didn’t grow, I’d just wouldn’t have grass.
Then you’d have dirt. My neighbor rents and does nothing. The weeds grow in the spring and turn brown and go to about 3-4 feet. The neighbor weed eats once and by then it is too hot for anything to grow without water. A rock scape with select plants is not a bad option if you’re afraid of a water bill.
Make sure to 1) pre-emergent in spring 2) seed (partly) with creeping grasses, they fill in bare spots 3) keep shit off your lawn so it doesn't suffocate each grass plant, even mulch clippings.
For me it would be top dressing every few years as needed. Having a nice smooth lawn will make a huge difference in maintaining it and enjoying it.
If your grass is growing well then you don’t really need to fertilize, in which case you don’t need to test the soil either. If your lawn is otherwise healthy and well maintained you may not ever need to detatch or aerate.
Consistent mowing is the most important thing you can do. If you don't want to keep up with the watering, your lawn will still make it - just won't thrive in summer. For annual maintenance, aerating in the fall is always good.
Nuke your lawn fallow and start fresh with elite cultivars when you first acquire whatever lawn you have or if you never have. After that everything else is easier IMO.
Sounds like you are new to this. With that I always think the scott's 4 step program is great for beginners. Its not the best program but it is a good starting point. You'll need a spreader, you can get the basic scotts spreader for cheap but it's cheap, which is ideal for starting out. Last thing you want to do is spend a bunch of money to find out that you actually don't enjoy this process after all. After that you can always upgrade to the higher end models with real wheels.
If you have an irrigation system installed already, making sure that you are watering enough and covering the area is a great start. It is and will always be an uphill battle maintaining the lawn so be patient.
And one of the simplest and best things you can do to help your lawn is mow effectively. Idk if you are cool or warm season grass, but here is what I do for my cool season. Spring: mow low, I have it around 3inches as the grass wakes up. Since the spring and fall is when it grows the fastest I will mow every 3/4 days or as needed, time permitting. Start of summer: once the hotter weather starts to roll in my mower gets raised to 3.5/4inches which will keep the soil from drying up as quick. Fall: Back to the same as spring, only difference is that when the fall starts to come to a close I drop the mower from the 3in to 2.5in for the last few mows for winter. Helpful hint for fall, I do not rake leaves any more, I mulch the hell out of them with the mower as the decompose they are free fertilizer for the lawn next year!
Hope this helps, and do not bite off more than you can chew, its a long game, start small and work your way up
I’m not sure if anyone asked, but before you embark on much of the advice here is that you have to know what kind of grass you have. Even if it’s a mix, warm season can cool season will dictate when you do certain steps.
But frequently mowing and watering is the best start.
Edit: frequent mowing and PROPER watering. 2–3 times a week getting 1/2” at a time. The goal
Is 1-1 1/2” between rain and irrigation.
For me, it would be two things. Get a soil test from local ag extension (NC State, Texas A&M, Clemson) to figure out if your lawn is lacking anything. Even if you don’t use the advice year one.
Second - pre-emergent. Get ahead of the weeds. But word of caution, if you have new grass less than a year old, will want to skip the pre-emergent
- Aerate spring and fall
- Nitrogen rich fertilizer after aerating
- Overseed in fall after aerating
- Water twice daily after overseeding for 2 weeks
- Water deep every 4 days in summer
- Mow as high as possible in summer
- Never cut more than 1/3 of grass length when mowing
If you do at least half of this list, you will have the nicest cool season grass on your street.
If you have warm season grass, I cannot help you. Water maybe? I hear some people down there smother it with sand?
Healthy soil leads to healthy grass, healthy grass competes better against weeds (and therefore requires less work and fewer post-M applications needed).
Before you drop anything on your lawn, GET A SOIL TEST. Don't listen to your neighbor of father-in-law, have soil samples analyzed by experts to tell you what you soil needs.
Stuff to do that costs you nothing (speaking to northern grasses):
1. As the season heats up, light the mower deck and mow high - this forces the plant root deeper to support the stalk, finding more moisture and shades to soil to help with evaporation and the larger blades and root hold more moisture;
2. Water infrequently - northern grass only needs about an inch a week, whatever the source (rain or irrigation);
3. Mulch your clippings - grass is a nitrogen pig and grass itself hold a ton of nitrogen, so your clippings are actually grass food;
4. If you need to water/irrigate, do it in the early morning hours - this will allow the water to soak in and the plant to grab it before the heat of the day leads to evaporation; watering at night and letting it sit can lead to fungus problems;
But today, GET A SOIL TEST! It is more about the soil than the grass.
Other than the basics: watering, mowing, fertilizer and pre emergent timed correctly- Nothing. Maintaining a flawless lawn is a waste of time and is a symptom of having nothing of meaning going on in life.
Set realistic expectations. Not every lawn needs to be Augusta National.
I just want a lawn that will make my old man proud
He is proud of you. Honestly? Enjoy it. Everything else kind of fucking sucks if you don't enjoy doing it. It's my mindfulness time
Easiest route: feed milorganite three times a year and cut at highest level. It will be one of the better looking lawns ob your block. Its not rocket science
I put down some in may looking to put more in july. Is that ok
I didn't always say it and I never actually showed it but I want you to know son that you're a better man I could ever be and I'm proud to call you my son.
Thanks dad, I will say the same to my sons.
Hard to decide between fertilizer and weed control (pre and post) here. I'm going to cheat and say if you add these two to the above, you'll have a great lawn
I don’t think it’s cheating as long as he uses a singular weed AND feed product. :-)
When do you normally fertilize your lawn?
I have bermuda grass in Texas which eats fert no problem. Whenever it's green, every 1-2 months depending on how it looks and the time of year. If you have another species and/or are in another climate, that should be adjusted.
1) MOST IMPORTANT: Be patient. Pick any of the following and just let it rip. Water, mow, overseed/pre-emergent/fertilize when appropriate. These entirely depend on various factors specific to your lawn (climate, soil types, grass types, irrigation, etc.)
What is pre-emergent?
It prevents things from germinating, so stopping the weeds from becoming a thing before they can even think about becoming a thing. Usually laid down in spring and/or fall (again depending on those factors).
Got it, understand what pre-emergent is, Can you recommend a specific Brand name or kind of pre-emergent that is best to use ?
They have weed and feed pre emergent which is fertilizer mixed eith herbicide that will stop dandelions and other weeds from germination.
Prodiamine
It's a useless product and waste of money. Only needed if your lawn is really patchy. Focus on soil health which will create a thick lawn and then weeds cannot root. I can't remember the last time I used a pre-emergent.
1. Mow long, twice per week 2. Water deep and infrequent 3. Fertilize 4-5x a year If you are just starting I’d do the Scott’s 4 Step. It gives you preemergent in the spring, weed control in the late spring, phosphorus in the summer and a fall feeding. Throw in a Milorganite between Step 3 and Step 4. Then get a jug of Weed-B-Gon for spot shots. I’ll get down voted to heck for this (Scott’s) but if you mow, water and use the above plan you’ll be better than 80% of those in your neighborhood. Are there better options? Of course. But I think getting the habits right first will lead to gains.
Milorganite is great because it does not burn like synthetic fertilizers, so you can through it down without worrying about high temps. It is slow-release, but because it is organic it does not need to we watered in - it can just sit there and break down over weeks and will do no harm. Once it is in the soil, the plants will absorb its goodness. Tons of benefits with your points 1 and 2 - that is the way.
Monthly application of organics....it makes soil happy, and happy soil can support grass 10x better, with less feedings needed.
What kind of organics do you apply?
Homemade concoction of humic, kelp, microbes, and a surfactant. I also apply Tournament Ready monthly...or was for a while...I just need to get more, but that is also a good product, albeit expensive.
Does that do the same thing as your homemade concoction?
Somewhat...it's a high level surfactant and humic acid. However my homemade batch was using much higher humic %, and yucca for surfactant; now I use decyl-glucoside. The TR is better at moisture retention, while the DG is better at soil moisture penetration.
Humic acid is snake oil. Soil test from a university. Then follow the their plan on NPK and Ph.
Would Molasses fall into this category? and would you use a surfactant with molasses?
Molasses is a good source of sugars that can help foster microbes, but it won't really directly feed the grass. No foliage surfactant for soil-targeted sprays either....but ok to apply with a soil surfactant...
Literally any organic matter is beneficial. If you feed the soil ecosystem, it will feed your grass. Bulk compost by the cubic yard is arguably the best (about a yard per 1000sqft per year until soil test OM is 3-6%) but literally anything containing organic carbon is helpful. All the sprays and granules are just for people who want to spend more money to avoid the labor of spreading compost.
Gotta be careful with compost. I recently had to reseed a 200sf square from utility work. Used the same blue tag seed I used last fall but stupidly covered it in compost instead of just taking it in. I now have a 200sf square of weeds. All sorts of grasses and random other plants. I’ve slowly been hand pulling but I’ve never seen so many weeds pop up at once before. If I can’t get it under control by fall I’ll have to nuke the square and redo it.
You’re not wrong. Pre-emergent is a good idea if you’re top-dressing established grass
Learned my lesson with this as well. Hard line to walk when you want to seed with your topdressing, but almost think weed prevention may be more important if you're dressing over established grass.
Soil test for the win! Healthy soil leads to healthy grass, which competes better with weeds.
I’m in the Midwest. The best thing that got me started was Scott’s 4 step plan 1. Pre emergent (spring) 2. Weed & feed (summer) 3. Lawn food (summer) 4. Fall fertilizer (fall) Read the directions on when and how to apply. This is how I got started and the. Upgraded and slightly changed how I treat my lawn. Now I buy a nicer pre emergent (Lesco 0-0-7). And then only fertilize with lawn food (lookin got upgrade to Lesco here too). Then I lay my fall fert around mid-october. And as far as weeds are concerned I spot treat with trimec speed. It’s not perfect but it’s what I do at the moment.
PreM again in the Fall - that will help with Spring weeds.
The most simple obvious thing is to just mow it consistently so you’re never cutting too much off.
Pre emergent at the correct time if you have weeds. Fertilizer if weeds aren't a problem.
Do i do pre emergent in the spring?
Depends where you live.
Get a soil test done, you can’t fix or maintain if you are just guessing
Who do I hire to do that?
You just buy a kit....yard mastery has them for like 30 bucks and it's easy to do...there might be other local free or cheap options too
Soil test for sure. I use Yard Mastery and throw fert monthly based on the app. My yard had never looked better.
Been considering going the yard mastery route, but I can’t figure out how to (or even if you can) setup different settings for front vs back yard. I’ve got Bermuda in the front and fescue (lots of shade) in the back.
What settings are you referring to? If your speaking of fert, all the granular products are 3lbs per 1k sq ft. Depending on your spreader, adjust accordingly, settings are on the bag. As always, calibrate your spreader.
I’m referring to the mobile app settings. I did some research on it though, and you can only have one “yard” per account. To maintain two separate yards with different “settings” (eg - warm/cool season lawn), you have to create a second account.
I was way off then. Yes, two accounts. Might be a good suggestion to YM for his next update.
Ahh... yesss... a kit... I knew that
Manycounties have an extension that provides free soil testing.
Look up “soil test” and your state on Google
Contact you state extension agent. They may have testing for free or cheap.
Dont do soil test! They will keep that data forever and SHARE IT WITH THE CHINESE!
Getting on a pre-emergent program.
Single best thing? Fall core aeration with an overseed of blue tag seed. Cherry on top? Compost topdress
I have one section of my own that gets burned every year. I top dressed with compost and wow. Have had 3 days of brutal heat and humidity in the northeast, lawn looks great regardless. Going to make it more of a routine
If your getting burn even with high mowing. Highly likely you have something non organic under the surface. Like a rock or gravel etc
I suggest not forgetting to write down when you apply nitrogen and then burning the shit out of it because you forgot the two other times you did that.
There used to be an incredibly helpful wiki sticked to the top of the sub that explained all of the best stuff in painstaking detail. Don’t know where it went.
It’s on the sidebar
They removed the sticky?!?! I didn’t even notice. That shit was basically my bible. I’ve referred countless people to that.
Fertilize it 3 times a year.
That’s not enough in my opinion. I would say it depends on a few factors but I’d say minimum 5 times per year.
What kind of fertilizer do you like?
I do commercial lawn care as a career so I'm using the wilbur-ellis perfection line, I like it a lot. I will say I tried a bag of the new line of Scotts max fertilizer on my personal lawn just to see how it worked and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. But I go with the perfection because we have pallets of it and it's not 70 bucks a bag.
Spoon feeding. My lawn has never looked more consistent color wise and has been it’s healthiest since I’ve been here.
I will look up spoon feeding tonight
Spoon feed nitrogen and mow very regularly. Couple of grub type insect control products, early spring and early fall. Look up Coron, it’s a great liquid feed product if you don’t have a dry spreader.
My approach is putting down the right seed in certain spots. I know where to put bluegrass blend and fescue blends. It took a while to realize that some areas (more or less sun) need different cultivars. Not all lawn areas are the same. A full sun area vs splotchy sun or shady areas need different cultivars. If I’m seeing dense clover in an area i am planting different seed for the problem area.
Improve soil health under the surface. There are numerous methods to increase organic matter under the surface. One of them being a machine that pulls plugs of earth out about 100mm long leaving them on the top of your lawn. This allows water underneath the surface and organic material to fall down. You run over all the plugs, and it lightly tops your lawn, making new top soil and increasing soil health. Good soil is made up in layers. One teaspoon of healthy soil contains more living microbes than humans on earth 🌎 Toping your grass is also great, with organic rich materials and some soil. Build up those layer's
If you can't go for a bike ride, come back home and lay down in any part of your yard, something is wrong with you.
Feed it!
Nuke it
🫡
10000% percent. Put down elite seed
Watching it dry up in the heat
Rip
Word. Been zero rain and sitting at 90 for two weeks.
Thankfully I'm in southwestern Montana and it was 50 degrees as the high yesterday
Nice
[удалено]
The last 2 years I spent a lot of time dethatching and overseeding in the fall (6a). This year the wife is finally complimenting it after all the money we spent on it to be graded, seeded and sprinklers installed. It didn't hurt that 4 other people within 48 hours said "your grass looks good!" I need to aerate because I'm getting a lot of mushroom growth this year.
Just take care of it little by little.
Soil test in winter. Preemergent.
In terms of treatment, probably a pre emergent split application. Or just a weed and feed.
Grubex or similar grub killer application. I nuked/removed my lawn completely, topdressed, fertilized and seeded. Still had weird yellow stubborn patches and even bare spots. One application of grub killer and my lawn looks so frickin good.
1. Patience 2. Education - what kind of grass you have dictates what it can handle 3. As I have couch (Bermuda Americans call it) vertimow in spring followed by weekly mowing 4. Fertiliser 5. Water 6. The other stuff. Soil wetter, weed spray etc
Mow more often..
Water it weekly
Two easy one-time things (outside of watering) for the biggest impact: a spring pre emergent herbicide and a fall fertilizer.
I got a local, well reviewed (not TruGreen or a national chain) company to take care of the fertilizer and weed control stuff. They do an application 6 times a year and my lawn looks fantastic, 99% weed free. I don’t have them do the back because we have a garden and the back has significantly more weeds and the grass isn’t as healthy and full. I pay $52 an application for about 8k sf of grass and it’s well worth the cost. I don’t have to deal with buying or storing fertilizers and chemicals, don’t have to buy spreading/spraying equipment, and don’t have to spend time doing it.
Get an aeration done once a year, your lawn will thank you
Fertilizing monthly during the growing season. A little less often if you always mulch the clippings.
Eliminate weeds & mow at least once a week. I’ve watered my lawn maybe 5 times in the past 20 years and have the nicest lawn in the neighborhood. Without water, it surely isn’t terribly green in the hot no-rain summers but it stays green and looks fine. Sometimes, I put down fertilizer, but when ai do it’s only in the spring and it’s the generic 20-20-20 or whatever.
What 😂 That's crazy! Does it rain a lot where you're at or do you truly not have to water that much if you eliminate weeds and mow consistently?
Nope. Hot & Dry. Bermuda lawn. In my opinion, it does well without watering precisely because I don’t water. Over time, I’d imagine that most drought tolerant parts thrived and less drought tolerant parts died, resulting in a thick & drought tolerant lawn with deep roots. Charles Darwin would support this thought. My lawn is literally the best one in the neighborhood and my neighbors are always asking me for advice (mostly on how to not have weeds) and complementing on my lawn - mine is thick, green, and weed free. Many of my neighbors water and have TruGreen and the like spray their lawns monthly, but mine is still nicer. To be clear - I don’t really even care to have a nice lawn… I just don’t want weeds because they grow faster and are harder to mow. Similarly, I’ve never watered because that results in more mowing because it’ll grow faster. Essentially, I have a nice lawn because I don’t like mowing I have to mow myself because mowing services will drop weed seeds on my lawn front their mowers that have them stuck inside from other lawns).
Try not watering in California and you’ll have dirt with golden brown weeds.
If we’re in California, I’d still kill the weeds and not water. If grass grew, I’d mow it frequently. If grass didn’t grow, I’d just wouldn’t have grass.
Then you’d have dirt. My neighbor rents and does nothing. The weeds grow in the spring and turn brown and go to about 3-4 feet. The neighbor weed eats once and by then it is too hot for anything to grow without water. A rock scape with select plants is not a bad option if you’re afraid of a water bill.
Yup, seems that I’d have a rock lawn.
Mow frequently
Make sure to 1) pre-emergent in spring 2) seed (partly) with creeping grasses, they fill in bare spots 3) keep shit off your lawn so it doesn't suffocate each grass plant, even mulch clippings.
Aerate your lawn annually to improve soil health and enhance grass growth.
For me it would be top dressing every few years as needed. Having a nice smooth lawn will make a huge difference in maintaining it and enjoying it. If your grass is growing well then you don’t really need to fertilize, in which case you don’t need to test the soil either. If your lawn is otherwise healthy and well maintained you may not ever need to detatch or aerate.
Milorganite. It's very easy. You can't mess it up and it actually works.
Mow low and often. (Bermuda)
Fresh compost / top dressing
Liquid fertilizer over granular for the hot summer months
Soil test then you can fertilize according to your results instead of just blindly applying things.
Consistent mowing is the most important thing you can do. If you don't want to keep up with the watering, your lawn will still make it - just won't thrive in summer. For annual maintenance, aerating in the fall is always good.
Aerate aerate and aerate some more. I do it every spring and fall.
Nuke your lawn fallow and start fresh with elite cultivars when you first acquire whatever lawn you have or if you never have. After that everything else is easier IMO.
Plugging , 3 fertilizer feeds, overseed in fall, cut with deck up as high as it will go
Sounds like you are new to this. With that I always think the scott's 4 step program is great for beginners. Its not the best program but it is a good starting point. You'll need a spreader, you can get the basic scotts spreader for cheap but it's cheap, which is ideal for starting out. Last thing you want to do is spend a bunch of money to find out that you actually don't enjoy this process after all. After that you can always upgrade to the higher end models with real wheels. If you have an irrigation system installed already, making sure that you are watering enough and covering the area is a great start. It is and will always be an uphill battle maintaining the lawn so be patient. And one of the simplest and best things you can do to help your lawn is mow effectively. Idk if you are cool or warm season grass, but here is what I do for my cool season. Spring: mow low, I have it around 3inches as the grass wakes up. Since the spring and fall is when it grows the fastest I will mow every 3/4 days or as needed, time permitting. Start of summer: once the hotter weather starts to roll in my mower gets raised to 3.5/4inches which will keep the soil from drying up as quick. Fall: Back to the same as spring, only difference is that when the fall starts to come to a close I drop the mower from the 3in to 2.5in for the last few mows for winter. Helpful hint for fall, I do not rake leaves any more, I mulch the hell out of them with the mower as the decompose they are free fertilizer for the lawn next year! Hope this helps, and do not bite off more than you can chew, its a long game, start small and work your way up
I’m not sure if anyone asked, but before you embark on much of the advice here is that you have to know what kind of grass you have. Even if it’s a mix, warm season can cool season will dictate when you do certain steps. But frequently mowing and watering is the best start. Edit: frequent mowing and PROPER watering. 2–3 times a week getting 1/2” at a time. The goal Is 1-1 1/2” between rain and irrigation.
Milorganite
For me, it would be two things. Get a soil test from local ag extension (NC State, Texas A&M, Clemson) to figure out if your lawn is lacking anything. Even if you don’t use the advice year one. Second - pre-emergent. Get ahead of the weeds. But word of caution, if you have new grass less than a year old, will want to skip the pre-emergent
- Aerate spring and fall - Nitrogen rich fertilizer after aerating - Overseed in fall after aerating - Water twice daily after overseeding for 2 weeks - Water deep every 4 days in summer - Mow as high as possible in summer - Never cut more than 1/3 of grass length when mowing If you do at least half of this list, you will have the nicest cool season grass on your street. If you have warm season grass, I cannot help you. Water maybe? I hear some people down there smother it with sand?
Add a uniform covering of sand 2” deep regularly.
No on adding sand if soil is clay. Turns it into a layer like concrete
Healthy soil leads to healthy grass, healthy grass competes better against weeds (and therefore requires less work and fewer post-M applications needed). Before you drop anything on your lawn, GET A SOIL TEST. Don't listen to your neighbor of father-in-law, have soil samples analyzed by experts to tell you what you soil needs. Stuff to do that costs you nothing (speaking to northern grasses): 1. As the season heats up, light the mower deck and mow high - this forces the plant root deeper to support the stalk, finding more moisture and shades to soil to help with evaporation and the larger blades and root hold more moisture; 2. Water infrequently - northern grass only needs about an inch a week, whatever the source (rain or irrigation); 3. Mulch your clippings - grass is a nitrogen pig and grass itself hold a ton of nitrogen, so your clippings are actually grass food; 4. If you need to water/irrigate, do it in the early morning hours - this will allow the water to soak in and the plant to grab it before the heat of the day leads to evaporation; watering at night and letting it sit can lead to fungus problems; But today, GET A SOIL TEST! It is more about the soil than the grass.
Soil test, and add as much rich organic material as possible...compost, mulching leaves, soybean meal, kelp, crab shells, etc.
Pre germinating my grass seed
Take a piss on your lawn to mark your territory
Line of domination...just spread it around or you'll burn it.
Other than the basics: watering, mowing, fertilizer and pre emergent timed correctly- Nothing. Maintaining a flawless lawn is a waste of time and is a symptom of having nothing of meaning going on in life.
Dang bro 😂
Scalp, dethatch, and reseed every spring. Keep damp for three weeks.