5 Key Practices for a Healthy Lawn

I know that taking on your lawn can be a fun but daunting process. So many factors to consider in order to produce a healthy sward that showcases your house and makes neighbors envious. Landscape companies and professional lawn consultants are not the only way to obtain a great looking piece of property. With a little bit of research and hard work you too can create a lush landscape of healthy turf!

Mowing

The most fundamental part of maintaining a lawn is regular mowing. It seems like a straightforward concept right! Go out when it’s getting long, chop it down to an appropriate height then rinse and repeat! Well, if you want to adequacy, scalping, shallow rooting, thin turf and weed invasion this is the right process. This is why your neighbor’s lawn looks the way it does. No thought into time of year, nutrient release, cold or heat stress and excessive clipping yield.

Planning your mowing schedules out is easier than it seems. Understanding some key principals of turfgrass health will go a long way towards the success of your lawn and it starts with annual growth cycles.

Warm Season

Cool Season

It becomes evident after looking at the two previous images that growth rate and varies according to air and soil temperature. Cool season grasses have two periods of the year where photosynthesis is optimal and consequently root and shoot growth surges. Warms season grasses surge during summer months and have to survive through the winter with roots it developed 4 or 5 months ago. Cool season grass roots shear off when soil temperatures rise which leads to my next point.

Mowing frequency is vitally important to prevent scalping and excessive leaf removal at one time. Most turfgrass varieties have the 1/3 rule some have a 1/4 rule meaning that you should not remove more than that at during one mowing because it damages the plant.

Thats true! but the damage is mostly exhibited in root growth reduction. You see, after removing more than a third of leaf tissue your lawn uses all its energy reserves from photosynthesis to regrow leaf tissue. No energy is then provided to roots! Nothing. The roots have to deal with what they have already. No new root hairs, no new development and this is during a time where now they have to supply more water and nutrients in order to build new leaf that was cut off. Putting the roots under serious stress.

The second part to this scenario is by removing more than a third at a time the turfgrass plant actually regrows faster! Yes, that’s right FASTER!

Have you ever mowed your lawn when its a few days past its regular mow, finish up and a few days later look at it and it seems to be the same height again! 1/3 rule is the reason. Faster regrowth compounded with increased pressure on roots during limited energy supply leads to a lawn that is getting beat down! It’s never going to get to where you want it with this kind of treatment.

So, what’s the answer? Be aware of the time of year and your growth rate. You really do need to be on top of it. There are reasons why sports turf gets mowed 2, 3, 4 times a week. The reason why landscape companies don’t is because they can’t sell it. But you, if your taking care of your own lawn, you should mow according to growth rate. Instead of every 7 or 8 days, maybe during growth surges its 5 or 6. Keep the plant healthy at all times is the goal, then it will be evident during adverse times of the year. 1/3 rule is more important than people understand.

Fertilizing

This initially is very confusing and can become overwhelming quickly. So, stick to the basics first and try to understand the annual growth cycle of your grass, be it warm or cool season turf. Through time you can fine tune to your specific situation but for now it’s best to understand what the main nutrients do for your grass and when you should use them.

NPK is on every bag of fertilizer you buy and stand for N= Nitrogen, P= Phosphorus & K= Potassium. These are the 3 primary macronutrients essential for turfgrass health. There are also 10 minor nutrients excluding sodium that are called secondary or micronutrients and but for now we will stick to macronutrients for this post.

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is the main growth source for your grass. It primarily provides color and shoot growth. Looking at the two previous images, you can get an idea of when most growth occurs and that’s when Nitrogen applications should be made. Applying too much Nitrogen during times of slow top growth can lead to plant health problems, so less at these times is needed. In cool season turf you should time your first application to coincide with crabgrass prevention and roughly another 3 to 4 applications throughout the remainder of the year. In warm season turf you should be building up to the heat surge and maintain as long as your surge lasts. During the shoulder seasons you should apply at reduced rates according to your growth rate.

For more specific information on Nitrogen rates, read my other post here: Nutrients, What Does Nitrogen Do for My Lawn? – DIY Home Lawn

Phosphorus

Phosphorus is for root and shoot development and is essential when new sod or seed is being grown. Applications of phosphorus is limited in many states as it can leach and consequently promote algae blooms and aquatic plant growth that can have a negative impact on water bodies. Therefore, phosphorous applications should only be made when establishing new grass via seed or sod, repairing turf that has been damaged or after a soil test has been conducted and phosphorus deficiency is concluded. Phosphorous therefore should only be used, if necessary, in these situations.

Potassium

Potassium is for the health and strength of the plant. It helps the plant survive during environmental stresses like, traffic, heat and cold. It creates a higher tolerance against disease, drought conditions and nematodes. So, if your cool season and you are coming into the summer, it would be a good idea to up your potassium percentage at this time to help it through the summer. Additionally, an application a week before aerifying or scarifying will help the plant recover faster.

Cool and warms season people, if you are coming into a dry weather pattern, it may be a beneficial application to put out before drought sets in. In generally, you want to put your ratio of N to K should be around a 1 to 1/2 or 3/4 when stressful periods start. For more detailed information about Phosphorus and Potassium read my other post here: Nutrients, What Does Phosphorus and Potassium Do for my Lawn? – DIY Home Lawn

Dethatching & Aeration

Crucial to any successful lawn program is an adequate amount of scarifying to remove thatch and aeration to improve structure from decompaction. These can be done throughout the year with the most optimal times being when turf is growing at a fast pace and before any environmental stresses set in. Spring and fall for cool season grasses and summer months for warm season grasses. This should be part of your plan from year 1 as it conditions your soil to provide a habitat for your lawn. More detailed information can be found here: Different Ways to Aerify your Lawn – DIY Home Lawn

Pest & Weed Control

Weeds are going to try and pop up at any chance they get. Any open bare spot in your lawn is just an invitation to weed species. The best defense against weeds is a dense sward of grass achieved through the techniques laid out in this post. Additionally, you should plan on applying preemergent herbicide and follow that up with post emergents as weeds appear. Warm season DIYers will need to monitor seasonal temperatures and plan on winter weeds as well as summer weeds and apply preemergent accordingly. Cool season DIYers plan on applying preemergent in spring with a possible follow up 8 to 12 weeks after if necessary. For more detailed information read here: When is the Right Time to Apply Preemergent? – DIY Home Lawn

Watering

During the summer months your lawn can lose up to 2″ of water per week from evapotranspiration! It’s hard to keep up with that amount of water loss but what you can do is condition your lawn to be receptive to rain events and able to adsorb rainfall when it happens and supplement rainfall through watering in between rain events. Don’t wait until you start to see stress from drought on your lawn before watering. By that time the soil has got tighter, harder and slightly hydrophobic, once this happens it’s really hard to rewet and you’ll find yourself wasting many gallons of water trying. Go out periodically with a screwdriver and get a feel for how firm or otherwise the soil is. This directly correlates to soil water content. Once you get a feel you can anticipate which way your soil is going and learn when to supplement.

What you want to maintain is a slightly moist soil (not wet). This can be achieved through the application of wetting agents before soils dry and maintaining an open soil structure through adequate aeration techniques. Wetting agents can help the soil hold on to valuable water and release it to the plant when needed.

Granular wetting agents are available that can be applied the same as fertilizer. Some fertilizers have wetting agents wrapped around them which makes things super-efficient. The goal for watering is anticipation, look at the forecast and see upcoming patterns. Is it going to rain soon, or should you go out and put 1/10 of water out?