Lawncare in the Spring To Repair Winter Damage
After the last snows and frosts are gone, you will need to perform regular lawncare in order to assure you have a beautiful lawn for the upcoming summer season. When you look at your lawn in spring it may be hard to visualize as it was in the height of its beauty the last time you mowed it in the fall. However, this chore is not as hard as you may think.
The first thing you have to do in spring to start taking care of your lawn is to remove any debris that may have built up on it over the winter season. Putrefaction, or the decomposition of animal materials, may be evident if any animals crossed the lawn during the past few months. You will have to remove these and dispose of them. You may also have to remove deal leaves that you missed in the raking during the fall as well as some grass clippings that rotted over the winter. If you do not take the time to remove these now, they may mar the look of the lawn later on.
Weeds also grow quickly in spring. You should carefully examine the grass and remove all the weeds, taking care that you get the roots and not just the leaves. Once you remove the roots you can feel pretty safe that the weeds will not grow back. Look for thatch cover. If it is less than half, then this won’t really pose a problem. However, if you find that there is a lot of thatch, and there are brown spots in the lawn, remove the thatch, aerate the soil and water it before you plant new seeds.
Aeration involves poking holes through the soil at regular intervals to allow the oxygen from the air to reach into the soil. These holes also allow the water to get to the roots of the grass and the seedlings that you plant. You should aerate all of the soil in the lawn to ensure that when you do water it, the roots benefit from the water and that it doesn’t just evaporate on the surface.
In spring, you do have to water the soil – a lot. It doesn’t matter if you have had a lot of snow or rain because most of this water does not go deep into the soil. Experts recommend that you add about 5 inches of water to the lawn when you start preparing it in spring. This is especially necessary if you had to salt any of the walkways or driveways or if your lawn is close to the street where salt was applied for de-icing purposes during the winter. Even if you didn’t apply it directly to the lawn, it does get carried by the wind and from the spraying from the vehicles. The water serves to desalinate the soil.
Add fertilizer to the soil in small doses. You should also do this at regular intervals to supplement the nutrients the grass needs in order to grow.
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