It feels like Christmas was just yesterday, yet we are in 2022. If you need something to take your mind off the winter blues, why start planning for your spring lawn care cleanup? Taking a proactive approach will help prevent problems later in the season, improve your yard’s health, and help your turfgrass green up faster.
How To Boost Your Lawn’s Health And Appearance This Spring
Step 1. Break Up Compacted Soil With An Aeration Treatment
If you’ve ever purchased a bag of topsoil, you know how loose and fluffy soil can be. When the ground beneath your turfgrass is porous like this, your grass is happy. Loose soil allows water, nutrients, and fertilizer to reach your turfgrass’ root zone. And the roots can move and grow, making your lawn more resistant to diseases and pest infestation. Unfortunately, soil loses its porous quality over time and starts to compress. This can happen due to too much thatch build-up and soil compaction. You should get an aeration treatment done as part of your spring lawn care to fix this problem.
Thatch And Compacted Soil
Thatch is what we call all those dead blades of grass, fallen leaves, and other organic matter that died in your lawn. Some thatch in your yard is beneficial, believe it or not. It helps stop weeds from germinating – since weeds need loads of direct sunlight to sprout. Thatch also helps keep moisture levels stable during the hot and dry summer and the freezing and dry winter. However, when there is too much thatch, your lawn suffers. Thatch will smother weeds along with your turfgrass. And while some extra moisture is good, too much moisture can make your lawn very attractive to pests and lawn diseases.
Thatch build-up also contributes to compacted soil. Remember when we said soil should be loose and porous? Over time, the earth will compress until it’s hard, like concrete. This happens for several reasons but having too much thatch left in the lawn speeds things up.
How Aeration Helps
As a full-service lawn care company, Ferta-Lawn offers aeration as an add-on to our six-step lawn care program. You might have also heard this service referred to as core aeration or traditional aeration instead of liquid aeration. This treatment aims to break up that pesky thatch layer and the hard compacted soil. Ferta-Lawn accomplishes this by pushing an aerator across your lawn. As the machine turns, it digs into the ground, removes tiny plugs of dirt, and deposits them on your lawn. These plugs will naturally break down over time and return nutrients to the soil. All those small holes will loosen up the dirt so water, air, and minerals can reach the root zone again.
Step 2. Get Ahead Of Weeds
When it comes to lawn care, anything you can do to prevent problems before they happen will save you time, money, and stress down the road. It’s undoubtedly true for weed control. Herbicides come in two types: pre-emergent and post-emergent. By applying a pre-emergent herbicide in early spring, you will strike at weeds lurking beneath the surface of the soil – weeds that haven’t had a chance to germinate yet. We will revisit the weed situation in late spring/early summer, and if we see any popping up, we’ll treat them using a post-emergent. Our staff is trained and knowledgeable about these kinds of products, and we’ll make sure to use products that won’t harm your grass. We also have the expertise to know which herbicides are most effective, so you don’t have to do the research yourself. Of all the ways to spend your time in the lovely spring, researching weed control products is probably not what you had in mind.
Step 3. Speed Up The Greening With Fertilizer
Fertilizer is so essential. It not only boosts the turfgrass’ appearance it also keeps it healthy, strong, and more resilient to pests, diseases, and stressors. Early spring fertilizers will help your lawn speed up its greening and bounce back from the cold season faster. Ideally, you should use a slow-release fertilizer. These types are granular, breaking down slowly as water passes over them. This keeps nutrient levels steadier. Quick-release fertilizers are usually liquid, and they are prone to washing out quickly from the soil. This means you might have to reapply multiple times a season. And if you’re not careful, too much of that nitrogen will burn the grass! Our team will advise you on which fertilizers we’re using and why they benefit your lawn. Like with herbicide, you can take the research, guessing, and homework out of caring for your property and leave it to us!
Hire Lawn Care Services Near Salt Lake City
Ferta-Lawn is pleased to offer our lawn care services to customers across Salt Lake, Weber, and Davis counties in Utah. Our company brings nearly 40 years of expertise to the table and delivers timely fertilizer applications, improved soil conditions via aeration, and reduced weed populations through herbicide. Let’s get you on our lawn care schedule! To learn more about the Yearly Six-Step Lawn Care Program, give us a call at 801-295-3057 or send us a message here. We’re happy to answer your questions and address lawn-related concerns.
We hope you enjoyed this blog, and if so, you can learn more about maintaining a dream backyard by reading our past blog posts here.
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