Got a dry lawn?
Sure, you can read plenty of do-it-yourself articles that focus on home improvement and fixing different appliances and fixtures in your house, but what if your lawn is the thing that needs repair? If you've just gone through a dry month and need your lawn to go from brown to green in a hurry, this post is for you. We'll take a look at some tips and techniques for getting your lawn looking, well, alive again.
- First, be sure what the source of the problem is. If you're not sure that it's the dry weather that's making your lawn brown, you'll want to figure out if it's a shortage of water or an abundance of hungry insects that's making your lawn go brown. If your lawn is brown in patches, there's a good chance that it's something other than the dryness - or at least not the dryness totally - that's effecting your lawn. If your entire front and backyard are both brown, you're probably looking at simple dryness. Hint: a good way to test this is to take out a clump of your lawn and look for the roots. If the roots are eaten up, you have bugs to blame. If not, the weather is probably the factor.
- Next, you'll want to make sure you apply the appropriate amount of water to your lawn. Look up your individual grass type or at least climate and try to find out the typical amount of water your grass needs to look green. You don't want to under-water your grass, but you don't want to over-water it either. Note: making sure you water your grass the proper amount doesn't necessarily mean that you'll want to conserve water. It seemly means that you'll want to find the right amount of water for your grass type - it might be high or low.
- Finally, you'll want to make sure you have strong blades of grass with strong roots. This is achieved by mowing your lawn with a high setting, meaning that you'll leave tall blades of grass. Why? The shorter the blades, the less need they have for strong roots to provide them with strength and nutrients. If you have longer blades of grass on a regular basis, the roots will grow strong and give your grass blades a healthy, attractive look. Remember that the more roots there are, the more water they'll need.
Photo Credits: Bill Hails
Originally posted 2009-09-28 03:38:26.
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Posted by Fix Handyman on September 2, 2010 in
Handyman, How to Fix, Landscaper, Lawn
How to Fix and Maintain Your Yard
Maintaining a great lawn isn't only about cutting it every week or so. Depending on the climate and area you're in, maintaining great lawn turf can mean a lot of different things. But the principles at play will remain the same: understanding your lawn, how to fix problematic areas, and following through with excellent lawn-maintaining habits. Once you learn how to maintain your lawn turf in the best ways, you can develop those good habits and keep them for the rest of your life. With that in mind, let's take a look at some great tips for maintaining great lawn turf.
Mow the grass at the right height. What's the right height? You'll have to do your own research on this because I can't predict what kind of turf you have. But looking up various types of grass and lawns, you'll be able to find the ideal heights to promote healthy growth and make sure that weeds and other problems don't develop. If you want to maintain a short lawn for its own sake, that might be a good idea, but you'll have to make sure that it's good for your grass, as well. If you want full, lush green grass, you'll have to consider your mowing height as a variable depending on the type of lawn you have.
Aerate your lawn after the dry or winter months. If you've been through a long winter, for example, your lawn will probably be hard and compact. Maintaining a good lawn means that you'll have to at least aerate it at the beginning so that you can both loosen up the soil and get more healthy air around the entire area. This will promote the recovery of your lawn back to its original lush green quality. In dryer states, this might not have the same effect, but you'll want to looking into aeration anyway.
Monitor watering time closely. Watering your lawn should also be a variable that depends on the type of grass you have. Dry states might need a lot more moisture than wet states, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep track of when your lawn is watered and how. For example, if there's been a plentiful rain fall and your grass looks lush a few days afterward, you can probably hold back on watering it. If there hasn't been any rain in weeks, you might have to keep a pretty strict schedule yourself. Remember that maintaining a good lawn means keeping up these habits in order to keep up with nature. If you make watering your lawn a part of your to-do list, you can keep tabs on your lawn without much thinking.
Photo Credits: SharkeyinColo
Originally posted 2009-08-03 03:30:49.
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Posted by Fix Handyman on July 11, 2010 in
How to Fix, Landscaper, Lawn
Create your favorite garden!
Whether the new season rolling around is spring, summer, or fall, it's always the time to think about your lawn. If you take a lot of pride in the way you treat your land and landscaping, but don't know exactly where to start in order to create a green and lush piece of property, this article is what you've been looking for. Preparing your lawn for the new season means knowing what your grass needs, how to avoid common mistakes, and making sure that you actually follow through with these tips. Let's take a look at how to best prepare your lawn for the new season.
Find a need and fill it. Different climates will mean different soils; that's why it will be up to you to find a need and fill it. Whether this means you inspect your lawn after winter to see where the weaker, dead areas are, or simply considering the quality of your soil and what it needs to become more fertile, you need to consider your weaknesses first. If your soil is dry, you might want to concentrate on sprinkler systems that can keep it moist throughout the dryer seasons. If the quality of your soil could be improved by adding more organic minerals to improve fertility, then buy some garden soil and spread it evenly in the most needed places.
Don't make the assumption that you'll know what your soil needs. You can head to a garden center and find ways to test the quality of your soil, and they'll be able to give you more tips for preparing your lawn in your specific climate.
Don't be afraid to destroy in order to re-build. This is especially true in areas where the winters are more severe; each season, there will be affected areas on your land that will be different from the rest of your land. If you need to dig, remove, or destroy some areas and replace it with different soil, then go ahead and make that change. Landscaping from year-to-year can include changes to keep up with your land; if you want to keep everything consistent, it still may be necessary to uproot before you start building again.
What are the places that might need a little bit of de-constructing before you start landscaping? Soil where dead grass seems persistent can need some uprooting and aeration. Borders that might include dirt or mulch could probably use re-freshening. Keep all of these tips in mind when you head to your local gardening center.
Photo Credits: katsniffen
Originally posted 2009-07-29 03:30:29.
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Posted by Fix Handyman on May 30, 2010 in
How to Fix, Landscaper
Summer Blooms.
Let's face it: raising a garden isn't always easy. Even if you pull it off and design it well, there's still a good amount of manual labor and honest work that will go into it. Tilling soil, landscaping, acquiring seeds, and making sure that your plants get what they need to grow can seem like an everyday endeavor. But if you plan your garden smartly and know what will be involved, you'll be ready for a full, lush garden within a relatively short amount of time. If you want to plant you garden the right way this summer, check out these tips.
Look up all of the plants that work well in your area. It's one thing to plant a garden in Wisconsin during summer; it's another to plant one in Arizona in spring. The simple facts are that some plants won't thrive in some areas like they will in another. That's why it will be crucial for you to do your homework up front: what kinds of flowers and plants work best in your local climate? This doesn't mean you necessarily have to plant something that everyone else is planting. Hard research on your part will yield some interesting flowers and plants that other smight not have thought of. Bottom line? If you plant something in your garden, make sure you know what that plant needs. That way you won't be surprised if your garden seems lackluster this season.
Make sure your soil is high-quality. Local garden centers can help you with soil testing kits that tell you exactly what is happening in your soil. After you know what plants you want, you'll want to make sure to treat and till your soil that that it's ideal for plant-growing. You want the right nutrients and amount of moisture in your soil to be conducive to growing the plants you sew. So make sure that your soil is ready for those plants; if not, be prepared to buy some high-quality soil from the garden center and mix it in with what you've got.
Make sure that your garden gets the right amount of sun. If you can't plant a garden under a tree, look for an area that does get a ripe amount of sunlight during the summer. If the problem is too much sunlight in your area, ask yourself where you might be able to get shade for large portions of the day. Most importantly, ask yourself how the plants will receive what they need to - and how you might block what they don't need.
Photo Credits: brewbooks
Originally posted 2009-08-07 05:23:04.
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Posted by Fix Handyman on May 18, 2010 in
Handyman, How to Fix, Landscaper
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