IN THIS POST:
– Lawn Maintenance Tips
– Gardening Tools
– Reasons to Care for Your Lawn
While buying a property with a garden has definite pros and cons, you can’t deny the curb appeal that a well-maintained lawn introduces. However, to get the maximum benefit from your yard, you need to put in some time and effort into maintaining it. We’ve compiled some of the basic lawn maintenance tips in this post to keep your lawn looking great, along with the tools you’ll need for the job. We’ve also briefly covered some of the reasons why caring for your yard should be of paramount importance for every homeowner.
Basics of Lawn Maintenance for Homeowners
Maintaining your yard often feels like an insurmountable task, especially for those who do not have any gardening experience to help them out. But guess what? All you need to do is follow these easy lawn maintenance tips to showcase a front or backyard that adds to your home’s appeal:
- Watering
- Fertilising
- Weeding
- Mowing
- Mulching
- Pruning
If you’ve just prepared your lawn for the spring season, the detailed explanation given below on each of these yard maintenance tips will suffice to keep the grass thriving. You can also check out more tips for a low maintenance garden at home if you want to spend less time working in the garden and more time enjoying it.
Watering
Once you have seeded and planted the lawn, it’s time to start watering it regularly. A newly seeded lawn requires daily watering for five to ten minutes, and once the grass starts to grow, water deeply once a week so that the roots are able to extract nutrients from the soil with the help of the moisture.
Warm spring weather and harsh summer weather requires watering even more, while you can skip a day during the monsoon season if it rains to avoid waterlogging the soil. You might need to water your lawn more or less, depending on the type of grass you’ve planted. Dried out patches of grass are a sign that you haven’t been watering the yard frequently enough.
If you have trees in your garden, you should water them carefully for the first two years after they have been planted. Most trees will require about 15 to 20 gallons of water in a week to ten days in the summer and autumn seasons, especially during dry spells. However, the trick to watering trees is to water them right in the centre of the spot where they’ve been planted, and to water them slowly, allowing the water to sink deep into the soil.
The trees will not need to be watered again until the top layer of the soil becomes dry. This indicates that it is time to water the tree again, slowly but steadily once more.
Fertilising
Fertilisers enrich the soil and supply it with extra nutrients, which enables grass to grow steadily, with all the ingredients necessary for healthy growth. While you may want to look into fertilising the soil based on your regional climate and grass type, most people fertilise the yard twice a year—once in the spring as the grass starts to grow and once in the late summer season, before fall.
Weeding
Weeds can crop up in every yard. While manually pulling up the weeds is always an option, it is important to spray herbicides on the grass to ensure that the weeds do not have a chance to thrive and take over your healthy lawn. A lawn that is overgrown with weeds will start showing brown patches of dead grass, where the weeds have taken up all of the nutrients from the soil, leaving none for the grass to absorb.
Mowing
As the grass grows, mowing the yard allows you to keep it trimmed to an appealing length. It does more than just cut down the grass, though. Mowing removes the topmost portion of the grass, which has often dried out due to the heat. Leaving only healthier parts behind. Moreover, as the grass’s density reduces, the roots are able to get better exposure to the water on the surface, ensuring healthier growth.
Ideally, you should mow your lawn once a week, preferably on the weekends, when you have sufficient time on your hands. Mowing will also reduce the chance of diseases, weeds, and insect infestations by improving the grass’s health.
Mulching
If you have planted trees in your yard, then mulching is a process you must know about. When you plant young saplings, it is important to protect them from weeds and pressure from the surrounding plants. Create a ring of mulch around the seed to keep the roots moist and ensure healthy growth.
Mulching must be done in the right amounts to safeguard the tree from injury. Also, most mulches will get absorbed into the soil over time, so make sure you add more as needed until the tree has a firm trunk and no longer needs help and support from the ground.
Pruning
Of course, if you’ve planted trees or bushes, you’ll also need to use pruning shears to keep them trimmed and in shape. Pruning involves clipping away dead and broken branches, and should ideally be done every two to three years. It becomes essential if your trees are young and set close together, as you might need to cut away branches that are damaging the neighbouring trees.
Use mechanical power tools to cut off larger and thicker branches. Use a ladder to reach the sections at the top of the tree as it grows.
Gardening Tools You’ll Need for Yard Maintenance
Having the right tools in hand will equip you to tackle lawn maintenance like a pro, while also being more efficient in terms of the time taken and the ultimate results you’ll enjoy. Here are some of the essential gardening tools to keep in your garage or tool cabinet:
- Shovel: Shovels or spades are usually used to dig up soil to plant seeds, prepare flower beds, and more.
- Chainsaw: One of the power tools used to cut off thick wayward branches, chainsaws can be quick and efficient, but be sure to keep them away from children.
- Pruning Shears: Handheld pruning shears are available with both long and short handles, and you can choose to keep both or either one as per the situation of your yard.
- Lawnmower: Unless you want to bend double and cut the long grass with shears manually, we’d suggest investing in a lawnmower that will make a weekly task become a pleasure. You’ll also get a more aligned and uniform look to your yard after mowing it with a lawnmower.
- Rake: Sweep through the grass for dry and dead leaves using a rake.
- Trowel: Want to replant a small sapling or pull out a deeply embedded weed? While spades can do the job, trowels give you a more precise result for tasks that require gentle handling.
- Garden Hose: Watering the lawn becomes much easier if you have a long hose connected to a faucet that you can open up to water the grass and trees as per their need. It’s the best alternative to installing a sprinkler.
- Watering Can: Keep a watering can handy for when your kids want to help you water the lawn or when you want to limit the amount of water you give to certain plant pots.
Why Care for Your Lawn?
Now we come to the crux of the matter. You can adopt these yard maintenance tips and buy these essential gardening tools, but you need to know the reasons why caring for your yard is essential. Here is why lawn care is important for every home:
- Improves Curb Appeal
- Increases Property Value
- Keeps Your Home Safe from Intruders
- Maximises the Use of Outdoor Space
- Prevents Accidents and Injuries
Let’s discuss the importance of lawn maintenance in detail below.
Improves Curb Appeal
An overgrown yard with wild bushes and branches is an eyesore and greatly impacts your home’s aesthetic appeal. Once the lawn is maintained, it often becomes the pride and joy of homeowners, who are proud to show off their garden, and even entertain guests in it without either party flinching at the sight of dead trees, brown grass, and unruly bushes.
Increases Property Value
If you’re about to sell your home in the coming year, spend some time in maintaining your yard as a home with a well-tended garden actually sells higher on the market than its neighbours. The reason is simple. You’re giving the buyer a well-manicured and perfectly planted garden, which they have to maintain regularly without any of the extra expenses associated with replanting a lawn.
Keeps Your Home Safe from Intruders
If your house is surrounded by dense trees and bushes that haven’t been trimmed in a while, you’re potentially giving plenty of hiding spaces to intruders who want to enter your property. Cutting away stray branches and bushes, and taking care of the yard ensures that you have a clear line of sight to the edge of your property and can spot any intruders lurking about to better secure your premises.
Maximises the Use of Outdoor Space
If you initially bought the property with outdoor space for entertainment, why let it go to waste? A little care and maintenance on time can help you create a secure and healthy environment to play with your kids and entertain family and friends. If caring for your lawn on your own is too much of a hassle, consider hiring a gardener on a weekly basis for your yard’s upkeep.
Prevents Accidents and Injuries
If you’re letting your garden run wild, and have kids at home, you’re risking their safety if you let them play outdoors. Stray roots or branches can trip them, and they can get scratched by wild bushes, resulting in small injuries like scratches and scrapes, to bloody wounds and even broken bones. Keep your garden maintained and make it a safer space for your children to enjoy themselves without fear of injury or accidents.
Now you know about the importance of lawn maintenance and how to do it right for the best results using the tips that we have shared above. Keep reading more helpful posts from us on Zameen Blog. You can also email your questions, suggestions, and comments to us at blog@zameen.com. We look forward to hearing from our readers!
