Lawn Mowers Guide - Cut a Fine Figure of Your Lawn

Lawn maintenance is a quite wide term, which encapsulates the activities like landscaping, lawn care, growing grass, cutting or mowing grass.

A layman may reckon that the lawn maintenance is a simple activity of just growing and mowing grass, but it isn't so. Lawn maintenance means meticulously grooming a lawn. It's not just growing or mowing grass, rather keeping a professional savvy about growing & cutting grass.

The two adverbs 'when' and 'how' are very important in lawn maintenance. They raise scores of questions like 'When should the grass be mowed? How frequently the grass be mowed? How high should the grass be cut? How low should grass be cut? How should the grass be mowed?'

These are not simple questions to answer. One needs to have professional knowledge on the subject and an unprofessional approach may prove insalubrious for a lawn.

When should the grass be mowed?

There are few important things that should be kept in mind before getting ready to mow the grass.

First, it should be made sure that the lawn is not damp or wet. One shouldn't try mowing even dewy grass. A damp or wet lawn may lead to lousy mowing by mower getting clogged with grass or bogging down. The mower may pull out the clumps of grass from the wet land. The simple solution in such cases is to wait and let the lawn fully dry.

Secondly, it's high time to mow when the grass has grown to at least a third past its mowing height.

How frequently the grass be mowed?

The frequency of mowing grass depends on the type of grass and season. The different grasses have different growing patterns and different peak growing seasons. They grow quickly in their respective peak growing seasons.

The warm season grasses flourish when temperatures exceed 80 degrees F. They grow very fast during summer and thus may need mowing every 3-4 days. The growth rate of these grasses may decline in the fall season and thus may only need mowing every other week. These grasses usually become brown and dormant depending on the drop in temperature in winter.

The cool season grasses, on other hand flourish in 60-75 degrees F. They are active in spring and fall months and thus may require mowing frequently. The growth rate of these grasses declines during hot and dry summers and they require less cutting. These grasses cannot bear hot summer and may also turn brown and dormant in extreme hot conditions, but the damp climate and higher elevations are very conducive for them. The bluegrass or fescue lawn grasses grow actively in spring. They should be mowed every three to four days during the spring and only once every seven to 10 days when their growth is stumbled by heat, drought or cold.

The grass grows fast in rainy season and thus requires to be mowed quite frequently.

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Quick Lawn Care Tips For Achieving the Perfect Lawn

If you've ever wanted to improve the look of you lawn there are a few things you can do to maintain your lawn on a weekly basis without doing any major work often required to recover a damaged lawn.

Lawn Fertilizer- Lawns need their Spring feed most of all, especially one containing nitrogen, backed up with both phosphates and potash. One feed per annum is not enough, and a Summer feed, if the lawn is looking a little jaded should contain either a proprietary lawn tonic, or nitrogen rich fertilize. An autumn lawn care feed should concentrate more on phosphates and potash rather than nitrogen, possibly combined with a worm killer and disease preventive.

Watering Your Lawn - Rainfall in the is normally sufficient to keep the roots supplied with moisture, but dry spells do occur in late spring and summer months. The first sign of drought will be colour change, from green to straw or even brown. It is advisable to water at the coolest time of day, early or late, and best with a rotary sprinkler. A good watering once a week for optimum lawn care is preferable to over watering,unless it is extremely hot. In this way deep root development will be encouraged.

Weed Control - This is really down to good lawn care management. With an established lawn, laid with good quality seed or turf, the rules for maintaining it include the following. Appropriate mowing, at the correct height and little and often, and proper watering especially at the hint of a dry spell. Scarifying helps to control weeds and invigorates lawn growth, as does proper feeding. Good fertility combats the growth of weeds and builds the strength of the grass. Worm casts invite weed seeds, worm control is necessary, and prevention of disease in bare patches.

Mowing Your Lawn - Mowing keeps the lawn looking attractive. It should he done regularly, from March to October, with sharp blades, set not too low. It is better to mow when the grass is dry, to reduce mower clogging. The mower should be moved in a constant direction at a steady pace, and not hoovered backwards and forwards. When newly sown grass reaches 2" or 3" inches high, the top 2" can be mowed with care.

Advice for new lawn care.

Establishment lawn care - Whether starting entirely from scratch, or renovating and old, tired lawn, the following is the best way to proceed. Seeding - for a lawn to be created from a bare, grassless mud patch, it is easier to get professional help with the levelling, via a tractor and box blade. A smooth clear surface is essential, with no holes, dips, or drainage problems.

Seed is best applied with a rotary type spreader. Half the seed should be spread in one direction, the remainder in the opposite direction. This gives good soil contact for the seed, and uniform germination. The type of grasses to be grown are dictated by climate, and are best planted 30 days before real warmth or chill sets in. Only hot season grasses should be sown when the temperature reaches 80 to 90 degrees. Hot season seed is very small and can be spread lightly, whereas cold climate seed is larger and requires heavier coverage for good thick grass.

There are various lawn care machines that can be rented for a day or two to power seed a lawn. The seed is dropped into ready made grooves as the machine moves over the ground. Again, a level surface is essential, and power seeders are not recommended where it is rough or uneven.

A further solution is to Hydroseed. Under this process the seed is mixed with fertilizer and a lawn care mulch plus water, and sprayed on to the lawn. This encourages quicker germination. The spray is coloured blue or green for identifying the sprayed area, and later turns white. The machine will usually have to be hired rather than rented. A lawn can also be renovated easily with a lawn care dethatcher, which scarifys the surface, and aids germination of scattered seeds. This machine needs using with care in respect of the lawn surface.

Preparing the Seed Bed.

For New Lawn care - Rake and smooth, remove any debris. Renovating Established Lawns - Mow closely. To overseed or repair bare spots, rake to produce a viable surface, then check section on 'fertilizing'. Kill off remaining seed with Finale. Vegetation will brown within 7-10 days. A good raking will remove loosened thatch and expose soil for seed. Bare spots can be chopped into small chunks to allow use of the slit seeder in a grid formation. Slits should run in a horizontal fashion across slopes. Do not use a Rototill, which will expose and spread weed seeds.

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