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DIY Lawn Care Tip: Storing Your Lawn Care Tools for Winter

November 24th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

OK, if you’ve finished with the mower and blower for the fall, congratulations! Before you send them to their well-deserved season’s rest, do a little maintenance. For the mower, clean the blades and the rotary mechanism. Oil if necessary. Drain the gas, or gas-and-oil mixture to avoid it turning to gunk.  Ideally, there’s not much to drain because you’ve used nearly all of it on the last mowing.  You’ll start fresh next season. Check the blade and note if it’s edges are dinged or jagged. It may need sharpening or replacement next season. Check and clean the air filters and spark plugs if applicable. Clean any grass and debris from the blower; and if it runs on gas or gas/oil, drain it too. If you have battery powered machines (my mower runs on a heavy-duty battery), make sure to take the batteries out and store them properly. Check your manual for instructions on seasonal/long term battery storage. Our tools help us to keep the lawn looking fresh and clean cut. You gotta take good care of the tools.

Lawn Care for Fall and Winter

November 20th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Most folks don’t realize that fall is actually the best time to work on your lawn grass to prepare it for winter, spring and summer. When fall comes a lot of people are really tired of cutting their grass and just want to shove the mower in a corner until the spring. This is the wrong attitude. Just a few weeks of work in the fall can get your lawn through winter and into its best shape for the spring season. Here are five lawn care tips for the fall and winter season that’ll put your yard miles ahead of the neighbors come spring.

Fall is prime time for cool season lawn owners to go nuts caring for the lawn.  Those of us with warm season lawns are almost ready to pack it in - but there’s still a few things left to do.

Fall and Winter Lawn Care Tip #1: Remove The Leaves And Mow

Don’t leave leaves on the grass until they all fall. You are suffocating your lawn and depriving the grass of needed sunlight, resulting in dead spots. Rake them up at least every two weeks; preferably every week. It’s a great idea to use the mulching option on your mower if you have it. Mulching, or finely shreeding the horde of leaves on the ground along with the cut grass and leaving them on the lawn is a great fertilizer.  This lawn care tip for fall and winter can save you hours of raking.  Freshly mulched grass clippings contain measurable amounts of the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium needed to feed your lawn.

How you mow is also key to lawn care for fall and winter. A lot of folks will have you believe that you should lower your mower’s blades in the fall when cutting to kill weed seeds.  Baloney. Weeds like sunlight to germinate.  By mowing more frequently at the proper height you effectively smother and deprive the weed of needed light. For cool season grasses (fescue, bluegrass) which continue growing into spring 2 - 2 1/2 inches is fine.  For warm season grasses like bermuda and St. Augustine you may even raise the blade as much as 1/2 inch but not past 2″ for the final fall mowing in late October/early November.  Warm season grasses go dormant in fall and winter and will not need mowing until spring.

The general rule is that when mowing any type of grass, mow when the grass is dry and only remove one-third of its height at any time to encourage its health.

Fall and Winter Lawn Care Tip #2: Aerate

Aeration has maximum benefits in areas of your lawn that bear the most activity and traffic. The soil in these areas can become compacted and air can’t get to the grass’s roots. Those roots need oxygen to grow and absorb nutrients and water. Compaction can lead to thin or bare patches in your yard. Basically with aerating you are punching holes in the soil so that water and nutrients can spread all the way down to the roots.  Cool season lawns are aerated in the fall, while warm season lawns are best aerated during June and July.

When it comes to aerators there are several options to choose from. Look for aerators, manually operated or mechanized, that remove a small plug or Read the rest of this entry »

General Information About Lawn Care Aeration

November 18th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Seems aeration is a big mystery in lawn care.  When to aerate a yard and how are question on a lot of home owners’ minds.  So let’s review some general information about lawn care aeration, because when done right aeration is one of the best things you can do to keep your yard healthy and green.

What Is Lawn Care Aeration?

Proper aeration involves cutting small thin plugs of soil (cores) out of the lawn. You are punching holes into the soil to allow nutrients, air and water to reach the grass’ roots.

Why Aerate?

As lawns age and/or are subjected to heavy foot traffic and use from pets, play, or vehicle parking, the soil becomes compacted.  This compaction reduces the soil’s ability to hold air, and absorb water and nutrients. Drainage may become poor. The lawn’s roots need air to grow; compaction effectively suffocates and starves those roots resulting in weak grass growth and eventually bare spots. Aerating can improve lawn soil drainage, increase the soil’s water, fertilizer and oxygen intake; and encourages strong root growth.

Now with this general information about lawn care aeration you may well ask if you need to aerate.  You may want to aerate if:

• the lawn is heavily used or driven on regularly,
• you have heavy clay soil; or
• your lawn’s thatch layer is more than 1/2″.  Thatch is a brown mat of living and dead roots and stems on the soil surface, just under the grass. Accumulations over 1/2″ deep keep nutrients, air and water from roots.

Lawns that don’t get a lot of foot traffic or use likely don’t need aerating.  Newly seeded or sodded lawns should not be aerated at all the first year.

For Great DIY Lawn Care, Know When to Aerate

When should you aerate? Generally, just as the lawn is coming into its period of rapid growth.  For cool season lawns, it’s best done late August into mid-September. Warm season lawns get the most benefit from aeration during May and June. Clay soils, because of their density, compact easily and may need more frequent aeration; perhaps twice a year.  Don’t aerate in the middle of summer’s heat. You may lose what little valuable soil moisture you have to evaporation and kill the grass.

Choose the Right Aerator

Any general information about lawn care aeration must include a discussion of the proper tools. Aerators come in manual and mechanical versions.  Manual aerators require a lot of exertion to operate.  The best and most effective are the machine-driven core aerators which remove cores of soil and deposit them on the yard. Aerators that push spikes or tines into the soil without removing a plug are not as effective nor recommended because they can contribute to and worsen soil compaction.  Don’t waste money on the so-called aerator shoes.  You can rent an aerator at many garden or tool rental centers.  Make sure the rental center thoroughly explains the operation of the aerator to you before you bring it home.

Tips for Lawn Care Aeration

• Soil should be moist, not soggy.  If the soil is dry, run 1″ of water on the lawn two days before aerating.  Moist soil allows the tines to penetrate better and the cores to fall out easily. Wet, soggy soil will jam the tines and the yard will be even more compacted.
• Mark sprinkler heads and any shallow sprinkler lines, underground utilities, cable and septic lines to avoid puncture damage.
• Leave cores on the lawn surface. They’ll be reabsorbed in 2-3 weeks.  This helps to break down any thatch.
• You can fertilize and/or reseed immediately if you want.  It’ll be very effective.

Armed with this general information about lawn care aeration, you can now aerate like a pro.  Your yard will thank you!

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