Awesome Lawn Care Hacks to Help Maintain Your Lawn
Nothing makes a home’s exterior look as tidy as a well cared for lawn. That is why how your home looks from the outside is called curb appeal. Lush green grass brings up a sense of nostalgia for running barefoot in the grass. But when your lawn begins to look a bit messy, there are many tips and tricks to try to improve how it looks.
Whether you consider yourself to have a bit of a green thumb or even if you consider your lawn to be a huge struggle, it’s certain there is a tip here that will help you achieve the look you’re going for. Call in an expert lawn care professionals or do it yourself, but the result will be the same, a well-cared-for lawn.
Get Rid of Weeds!
No matter what variety of grass you have in your lawn, or whether your yard gets primarily sun or shade, weeds can pop up anywhere and look unsightly. You can use newspaper print covered in mulch or grass clippings to limit weeds in a flower bed, what a great way to reuse yesterday’s news!
While commercial weed killers work wonders if you are concerned about their toxicity you should try this mixture that’s tried and true. Mix 1 gallon of white vinegar, 1 cup of table salt and a tablespoon of dish soap in a bucket. Funnel your mixture into a spray bottle and spray on the weeds you would like to rid yourself of.
A word of caution: this mixture is a nondiscriminate killer, meaning if it comes into contact with your grass or flowers it will kill them too. This mixture works quite well to kill weeds in sidewalk cracks and patio pavers.
The low-budget weed killer works because it suffocates the weeds. The soap coats the weed with the solution and then the weed will die of dehydration. For this reason, it is best to apply to unwanted growths on a sunny day with no chance of rain. If the weed is soaked with fresh water the mixture will rinse off and the weed will survive.
You will still need to go pull the dead weeds after they shrivel up and turn brown, but the good news is they will be very easy to remove at that point as their roots will be weakened and your sidewalks and patios will look fresh and clean.
Discourage Critters
While you may love the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning, critters do not. Because coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen and other nutrients your plants need. While it is not a fast-acting fertilizer, it will eventually breakdown in the soil for a long term healthy lawn that will be critter-free.
Slugs can be a real menace to your garden, destroying plants in their slimy wake. If slugs are a problem in your garden and the coffee grounds don’t seem to be doing the trick or you don’t have enough of them, you can always set out a beer trap for them. Simply bury an open container in the ground and fill with an inch of beers.
While you may not want to use this method if you have a dog or outdoor cat, the slugs will most definitely meet their demise and your plants will thrive. Another option is crushed eggshells, the sharp edges will harm a slug’s soft body and they will avoid the area. The bonus is the eggshells will act as a fertilizer as it decomposes.
Citrus peels are also known to deter small rodents and insects, so go ahead and save the peels and spread them throughout to not only have your garden smell lovely but to keep the pests at bay. Yet again here, as they decompose they will act as an excellent fertilizer for your plants and flowers.
Mow Carefully
While a neat trim lawn looks lovely when the grass is cut too short it can stress out the plant and is more prone to die or be invaded. You can avoid this by keeping your grass at the recommended height of 2 ½ inches tall. Once you have established the height you want, mark the setting on your lawnmower so you never have to figure it out again.
It’s also important to mow in a different pattern every time to avoid the grass leaning one direction over another. When you are able to alternate the grass will be less prone to stress and allows the grass to grow more upright, which will make your lawn look it’s very best and increase the density of the lawn growth.
Do grass clippings often get stuck on your mower? It’s a good idea to mow when the grass is dry to avoid clumps but if you are still finding the clippings sticking to the blades one hack in to use non-stick cooking spray. Just spray the blades down quick before you begin mowing and proceed, leaving the clippings behind to fertilize the grass instead of winding up in your garage.
Keep It Watered
A lawn should be watered regularly, about 1-1 ½ inches of water per week to maintain the lush healthy grass you love. It is better to water deeply a few times a week rather than daily. This is great news for people in areas with watering restrictions since every other day is absolutely good for the grass to do so.
Buying a rain gauge to judge if Mother Nature has provided enough water is always a good idea, but another rule of thumb is that if you cannot push a 6’ screwdriver into your lawn it doesn’t have enough moisture and could use a good watering. Watering earlier in the day allows a lawn to dry completely by nightfall which should restrict mold or fungus from growing.
In the heat of the summer, without proper watering, your grass may go dormant to protect itself as it does in winter, but it should revive itself once it begins to get more water and the weather cools down a bit. It can be overwhelming to try and keep up with the watering process but it is the key to a successfully well-maintained lawn.
Conclusion
A well-cared-for lawn looks inviting and is such a nice showpiece for your home. While it can seem overwhelming when you’re starting to care for a lawn for the first time, just take a deep breath and determine what your largest problem is and start from there. Once you see improvements from following one tip you can move on to another problem.
After you put some effort into your lawn and garden you will discover how easy it is to maintain from an everyday standpoint, lawns don’t require you to dote upon it hourly so it really can be a fun project that you can work into your daily activities. Enjoy your beautiful lawn!
