Maintaining a beautiful lawn

Lawn mowing techniques to give you a picture perfect garden

Growing and maintaining the perfect green lawn in your home can give a garden the ideal foundation and look.  Unfortunately this actual process of maintaining a green picturesque lawn is not as simple, requiring a great deal of time and effort starting from the very basic element all the way to the daily maintenance and lawn mowing technique.

To begin with, quality soil will make all the difference in the world when it comes to your lawn’s health so it is highly recommended that a lawn’s soil is provided with all necessary nutrients (a quality lawn product should contain most of these). If you are unsure whether the soil is healthy or not, there are soil testing kits available which will identify the nutrients found which will give you a list on what to provide for the lawn.

There are different types of soil that can be found with certain types not ideal when it comes to healthy lawn maintenance. Usually this can be amended by introducing other products such as wood chips which should improve the situation.

When it comes to the health of the lawn itself, a good rule of thumb is to let it grow longer than what you probably think, around 3.5 inches. While this may be longer than what some people would consider, having longer lawns will allow the lawn to withstand harsher weather conditions and cut down the chance of weeds taking a strong foothold as they cannot compete with the height of the grass blades. Basically, allowing for this longer length of grass allows for more moisture and carbohydrates to be reserved, creating healthy plants. 

Watering is often an issue that will arise for many people, especially when the region or state is caught in the grip of a drought. Just how often to water and for how long? Well it is advised by most horticultural experts that a lawn be watered infrequently, but deeply to ensure maximum exposure, yet the random watering will allow the roots of the lawn to take greater hold for a more resilient lawn.

When it comes to maintenance in the cooler months you obviously need to adapt the abovementioned tips and techniques so you don’t damage the lawn, which will slow its growing levels during this time.

The most important factors to cater to during cooler months include weeds, watering and sunlight which will all significantly impact on the health of your lawn come spring if you leave unattended.  For starters, weeds can quite often take hold during the winter months so frequent sweeps of the lawn and the removal of such weeds is necessary. What’s more, having weeds present in your lawn will create greater competition for the limited sunlight that is available in winter, meaning your lawn will be further damaged.

Finally always maintain a healthy amount of watering, especially during the cooler months as it is this time of year that the atmosphere is drier with less humidity, leading to a drier lawn more prone to permanent damage.

When it comes to lawn mowing and improving your lawn, here are some simple tips that you should incorporate into how you mow the lawn:

•  Mow the lawn regularly but superficially to encourage strong growth but without taking away too much height each time, otherwise you risk eradicating the entire lawn by cutting it all away
•  Mow in a different direction every time so no set patterns are cut into the lawn
•  Only mow the lawn when it is dry as wet grass will get caught in the mower
•  Always clear the lawn of any weeds