Summer Lawn Care Tips


Summer is just around the corner, and your lawn could probably use a little maintenance before the summer season of backyard BBQs and swimming in the pool. So what are you doing now to get your lawn ready? Lawn care is often feared as a difficult and time intensive process, but with a few guidelines and tips, you can easily have a healthy green lawn in time for the first backyard party of the season.

First of all, if you can spare a minute of your time, don't hire a lawn care "specialist" or professional landscaper. Buying your own lawn care products is cheap and easy, with hundreds of vendors offering products online and in Do-It-Yourself stores. A wide variety of products such as weed controllers to fertilizers can be found online, and usually can be found at reasonable prices, especially when you do a little online coupon searching.

Starting off on the right foot is important to reviving your lawn after winter. Fertilizer is the key to ensuring strong healthy growth of the grass in your yard. Fertilizing the grass does more than just make it green. Of course it will make it grow too, but lot's of things happen when you fertilize. Fertilizer makes the seed germinate faster, and get started out of the ground. After the grass has a good start fertilizer will make the grass get thicker and send off beneficial chemicals like Rhizomes, Stolons, and Tillers all making the grass thicker and healthier.

What most people want to know about fertilizing is - how much and when? Typically, you want to fertilize 4 times each season, spread 60 days apart. Start in early spring approximately 30 days before the growing season begins in your area, continuing through the growing season until fall. Spring fertilizing gets the grass off to a fast start giving you that rich green color everyone wants. A word of warning though, don't use too much fertilizer, follow the listed guidelines on the bag.

Mowing is the most misunderstood part of lawn care, and the most often incorrectly performed part of lawn care. Far too many people will set their mowers too low or "scalp" the lawn. How many times have you spent time mowing your grass in hopes of a beautiful result only to end up with brown spots? Cutting too much off the top leads to thinned out grass, and shallow root systems.

Now once you have achieved the perfect lawn, you must do regular maintenance to prevent it from going back to being a pasture. Spend a little time and money and keep it watered and you will keep the lush grass you spent your hard earned money and time on. The ideal way to water your lawn is with an Automatic Underground Sprinkler System. This way the watering is done every day that it needs it, you don't have to drag hoses, you don't waste water from over watering, and you get all of the lawn watered, not just where you happen to set the sprinkler. If you implement this type of sprinkler system, make sure to water shrubbery and annuals separate from the lawn. If you applied the same amount of water on your landscape as gets put on the lawn you would surely kill some plants from over watering.

Now that you're ready to care for your lawn, you'll need to get your supplies. Lawn care products can be found at many local gardening centers, or through many online merchants. Buying gardening supplies online is growing in popularity, and made even more economical by online coupons and discounts. For coupons on everything from fertilizers to lawn tools and equipment, check out www.CouponChief.com and easily save yourself some big bucks. Spend the extra cash on your first big BBQ of the summer and invite all your neighbors over to drool over your well manicured, lush green lawn.

Josh Gray, President of UC San Diego's Gardens Club, is a consultant to CouponChief.com. This online coupon website provides free coupons and discount codes to many favorite gardening websites on their home and garden coupons page.







Related News




Master Gardeners program growing in area - Branson Daily News

Master Gardeners program growing in area
Branson Daily News,  United States -Nov 20, 2008
By attending 30 hours of classes that deal with subjects on ornamentals, landscaping, turf management and vegetable production, these gardeners will join a ...

Everything's rosy for youngsters learning gardening skills - The Star

Everything's rosy for youngsters learning gardening skills
The Star, UK -16 hours ago
Some students have already gained apprenticeships with the council's Parks and Countryside Service and local landscaping companies. ...

Seabrook on ... Solidarity during tough times - Horticulture Week

Seabrook on ... Solidarity during tough times
Horticulture Week, UK -12 hours ago
By combining, the hosts get the chance to speak to a larger audience (it promises to be over 200 gardening communicators), both save money on the provision ...

A ‘green’ green thumb Extension gardening classes will teach ... - The Register-Guard

A ‘green’ green thumb Extension gardening classes will teach ...
The Register-Guard, OR -Nov 15, 2008
As a master gardener, Cairo picked up many of her sustainable gardening techniques from the training she received through the Lane County Extension Service. ...

Gardening Calendar, updated Nov 19 - TCPalm

Gardening Calendar, updated Nov 19
TCPalm, FL -Nov 19, 2008
"Florida Native Landscaping": University of Florida/IFAS Indian River Research and Education Center; 2199 South Rock Road, Fort Pierce; 4-7 pm, ...

BEHIND OUR STONE WALLS: Ready to face the world - Harvard Post

BEHIND OUR STONE WALLS: Ready to face the world
Harvard Post, MA -Nov 19, 2008
A critical and one of the most difficult skill to acquire in landscaping, and in gardening in general, is pruning. Pruning is not the same as hedging or ...

Learning from the ground up - The Nelson Mail

The Nelson Mail

Learning from the ground up
The Nelson Mail, New Zealand -21 hours ago
Golden Bay's Sol Morgan credits his mother for his love of gardening, and now he's inspiring a new generation to unearth the benefits of growing their own ...

Garden sector lures City workers as recession hits financial firms - Horticulture Week

Garden sector lures City workers as recession hits financial firms
Horticulture Week, UK -19 hours ago
He added: "This is making gardening an attractive option as the City sheds jobs." Banks such as RBS and groups such as Morgan Stanley and Citigroup are the ...

6 Fort Worth garden shops built their way up on a dream - Dallas Morning News

Dallas Morning News

6 Fort Worth garden shops built their way up on a dream
Dallas Morning News, TX -Nov 19, 2008
"It reinforced to me that gardening is not about performance. It's the process that is rewarding," says Ms. Samudio. Her 2 Hands vegetable gardening program ...

Eagle Scouts, Girl Scouts, gardening scouts - DavidsonNews.net

Eagle Scouts, Girl Scouts, gardening scouts
DavidsonNews.net, NC -Nov 20, 2008
They noticed that the landscaping around the new buildings appeared a bit sparse and knew the view from their third floor balcony could be improved. ...