Your lawn is an important part of your home landscape. A thick, green lawn adds value to your property and shows off all of its best attributes. It provides a place to play and relax and enjoy playing fetch with your dog or catch with your children.
A dusty, bare, spotty lawn certainty won’t do the trick when you’re planning these activities. You don’t want little Johnny tripping on tufts of weeds or Fido covered in mud or dirt just from running around the yard. You want a thick, green expanse of grass that provides a great cushion for running and jumping and an amazing backdrop for all of your favorite outdoor activities.
Is that too much to ask? Absolutely not.
As you explore ways to improve your lawn’s appearance, you might be wondering what steps you can take. Your local home improvement store will have quite a few DIY options to choose from, and the employees there will offer various opinions on the topic.
But before you take every word they say as gospel, buying up their fertilizers and weed spray and other additives, you might want to stop for a second and consider the source. Just because an employee works in the outdoors section of the store doesn’t mean they are an instant expert in lawn care. In fact, they could just be recommending products they want to move off the shelves or something they saw the last guy buy.
While you’re doing your research to understand what your lawn needs, let’s go over some of the biggest lawn care mistakes people make in Maryland so you can target your efforts and avoid costly errors and time-wasters.
You might see your brown or discolored lawn and think you can just buy a bag of fertilizer, apply it, and this will magically fix your lawn care problems.
Not so fast. Lawn care is a science. And there are some things that are simple to do on your own but other things that could be improved upon with better education or professional tips.
That’s why we’re here. These are lawn care mistakes to avoid that can help keep you on the right track.
One of the very first things we do when we are on a customer’s lawn is conduct a soil test.
A soil test tells you some important things about your soil conditions that can positively or negatively impact your lawn.
If your lawn is lacking green color, you might think you should pile on the fertilizer. If a little works, why not try doubling your efforts?
This “more is better “idea is actually quite terrible when it comes to lawn care.
Why? Because just because you think a small amount of product works never means a lot more of it will work better. In fact, it could actually reverse your efforts, making it one of the biggest lawn care mistakes.
Lawn care is a precise science, so sprinkling a bit more product without knowing what’s needed is never a great idea.
Lawn care also requires pretty precise timing when it comes to many applications.
For instance, if you’re trying to get rid of crabgrass, your pre-emergent herbicide must be applied early in spring before those weeds emerge for best control. If you miss this window, you’ll have more weeds.
That’s why timing applications incorrectly could be a major DIY lawn care error, wasting your time and money.
Proper mowing is an important part of lawn care.
One of the biggest lawn care mistakes is mowing your lawn too short. This results in a stressed out lawn, leading to underperformance, discoloration, and allows weeds in.
This height keeps your lawn thick and green.
Another big DIY lawn care mistake is wasting money on excessive or ineffective products and then using them incorrectly.
If you look back at the previous four mistakes, you’ll see that some simple tasks like a soil test, proper mowing, and targeted and focused applications can do wonders for your lawn. So wasting time and money on random products that don’t make sense or drain you of time and energy and don’t even deliver the results you’re after can be troublesome.
The goal of lawn care is to know your soil, know what your lawn needs, and don’t mess with the basics or proper timing.
You know the benefits of lawn care, and you know the results of properly taking care of your grass.
As you seek out ways to fertilize – from buying the right products and equipment to apply them – and then look up advice on timing and strategy, you might find your mind is spinning.
The best way you can avoid making any DIY lawn care mistakes is by hiring a professional like Natural Green Systems in Central and Southern Maryland.
Signing up for a lawn care program means you’ve embraced a proactive approach to protecting your green investment. You don’t have to worry about products or timing or even your soil pH because we’ve got it covered. And you get the lawn you want in the end … which is the best part.
Want to learn more about what professional lawn care services in Central and Southern Maryland include? Get started today with a free quote. We’ll review your options together so you can make a great choice. Then you can just sit back and enjoy your lawn.
Image Source: lawn mower