Once you’ve purchased a new home, you take on many new responsibilities, including maintaining your lawn. Freshly planted lawns need nurturing and care to fully develop. Keystone Homes, a new home builder in Augusta, offers these tips that will ensure your lawn looks healthy for the lifetime of your home:
While cutting your grass short may seem like it makes the most sense, it’s not necessarily the better option. Your lawn mower should be set to its highest setting so that you’re only trimming the top third of the lawn. Taller grass promotes better root development, shading the soil so it doesn’t dry out and blocking the sunlight that weeds need in order to germinate. When you are tempted to cut your grass shorter to save time down the road, it’s important to remember that grass renews itself so quickly that cutting it shorter won’t necessarily be a benefit.
Instead of watering your grass on a daily basis, it’s best to give your lawn a thorough watering once a week. This deep watering is much healthier for your grass because it helps roots to extend further into the soil. Frequent, shallow watering can cause unsightly thatch on the top of your lawns, and it can also cause cinch bugs to populate in your yard, as they thrive in dry conditions. The one exception to this rule is if you have a newly seeded lawn. In this instance, you should only water your lawn for five to 10 minutes a day, because the goal is to dampen the new seeds without washing them away. Once the seeds have sprouted and grown to around one-half inch, it’s safe to increase the daily watering time to 15 or 20 minutes.
No one likes weeds, especially when they’re growing in the middle of your lawn. If you have successfully grown a healthy lawn, the grass will choke out the weeds naturally, meaning you won’t have to use harsh chemicals. Also, if you mow your grass regularly, it will stop the spread of weeds like crabgrass and dandelion.
Healthy lawns need fertilizer to thrive. Most lawn care experts recommend feeding your grass at least twice a year in the spring and fall. In addition, most also agree that an extra feeding in the middle of the summer can be helpful too. Make sure you choose a fertilizer that has micronutrients such as sulfur, copper and iron, in addition to the fertilizer’s standard base. If your lawn is more mature, you may need to check the pH balance of your soil. After years of watering and fertilizing, it may develop an acidic base, meaning you’ll need to add special products, such as dolomite lime, to restore the pH balance.
Air is another necessary component to a healthy lawn. Over time, as your lawn compacts, nutrients won’t have a chance to penetrate to the roots where they are needed most. When this happens, you must aerate the grass, which pokes holes into it to improve oxygen circulation.
If you are searching for a new home in the Augusta area, Keystone Homes offers a wide variety of home styles, price points and locations. For more information, visit Keystone Homes’ website.