Proper lawn care keeps your landscape healthy. Certain tasks should be done frequently, like lawn mowing, and others should be done occasionally, like aeration. To determine the frequency of different lawn care tasks, homeowners must know about grass and soil types, temperature, and rainfall amounts. Lawn care services can help you learn and understand this information to grow a healthy lawn.
Factors That Affect the Frequency of Lawn Care
Different places experience varying amounts of rainfall and temperature ranges and have ideal grass and soil types. These differences influence how often you should do specific lawn maintenance tasks. Many lawn care services vary their services by season and will offer spring cleanup to prepare for growth or fall cleanup to prepare for winter.
Part of soil type is its texture, which ranges from clay-like to sandy to loamy. Loamy soil is good for grass growth and has a healthy clay, sand, and silt mixture. Soil texture, mineral, nutrient levels, and pH levels determine how and when to add fertilizer. Soil compaction level affects how often you should aerate your lawn. Rainfall amount, the season, and the grass growth rate affect how frequently you should mow and water your lawn.
Recurring Lawn Care Services
To keep a healthy lawn, homeowners need to water and mow it, add fertilizer, and aerate compacted soil. A lawn care service can help you with these tasks and make sure they are done at the right frequency. Here is more information on when to do recurring lawn care tasks:
Lawn Mowing
Longer grass receives more sunlight, which helps its roots grow thicker and stronger. The ideal grass height varies by type, but many types will thrive at two and a half to three and a half inches tall. Before you mow your lawn, measure its grass blade length. If mowing it will cut off more than one-third of its height, you need to wait longer before mowing it. When cutting your grass, you may need to raise the height of your lawn mower’s blades to make sure the grass is not being cut too short.
The amount of rainfall also affects lawn mowing frequency. When grass receives a lot of water, it may grow faster than in dry areas. If you live in an area with heavy, frequent rainfall, you will likely have to mow your lawn more often. Since rainfall amounts change during different seasons, you may mow more often in the spring than in the fall.
Fertilization
Proper fertilizing helps maintain healthy soil and grass. Many soils do not have adequate amounts of phosphorous, nitrogen, and potassium. Fertilizers can add these nutrients to your soil, but since it’s possible to over-fertilize your lawn, a slow-release option can help avoid that issue. Keeping your soil’s pH levels between 6.5 and 7.0 helps it better absorb nutrients. If the soil is too acidic, you can add lime. If it’s not acidic enough, you can add sulfur. Test your lawn’s nutrients and pH levels yearly to determine when you need to fertilize and what kind of fertilizer to add.
Aeration
Soil that has a lot of clay is heavy and gets compacted easily. Lawns with heavy foot traffic or too much thatch can also become compacted quickly and unable to get the water and nutrients they need. You can aerate these lawns to reduce compaction. During aeration, a machine pulls plugs of soil out, creating air pockets for water and nutrients. Many lawn care services will suggest aerating once a year, but you can do it more often if you notice signs of compaction like bare spots, puddling, or difficult-to-penetrate soil.
Schedule Regular Lawn Care Services
Adequate lawn care requires time and knowledge of various aspects of the environment and weather, such as rainfall and soil type. Lawn care services have the time and expertise to properly manage lawn care, like mowing, aerating, and fertilizing. Call a landscaping company today to schedule these services.
