Below are a couple of landscaping tips for summer.
During the hot summer months, your lawn may face challenges such as heat stress, drought, and pests. By staying on top of your lawn care routine, you can help your grass stay healthy and vibrant throughout the summer. Here are some essential tasks for summer lawn care:
- Watering: Proper watering is crucial in the summer to help your grass survive the heat and stay hydrated. Water deeply and infrequently to encourage deep root growth and avoid shallow root systems.
- Mowing: Adjust your mower blades to a higher setting in the summer to help shade the soil and retain moisture. Avoid cutting more than one-third of the grass blade length at a time to prevent stress on your grass.
- Pest Control: Look for common lawn pests, such as grubs, chinch bugs, and armyworms, which can damage your grass. Treat any infestations promptly to prevent further damage.
- Fertilization: Consider applying a slow-release summer lawn fertilizer to provide essential nutrients to your grass throughout the season. Avoid fertilizing during periods of extreme heat to prevent burning your grass.
Fertilizing is the cheapest and easiest way to make a big impact on your lawn.
Without fertilizer, most turf-grasses will struggle to maintain their vigor and color. Fertilizing increases growth, color, vigor, hardiness, thickens the grass, and is the mainstay of having a rich dark lawn. If you opt to feed your lawn only 1 2 times a year, you’re starving your lawn. A steady, regular diet is required. While fertilizing alone will not provide for a perfect lawn, it is one of the five most important parts of lawn care.
Fertilizer has three main elements: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash. Each element has a particular purpose as to what it does to a grass plant. Nitrogen is the most used of the elements. It produces fast growth, dark color, and helps thicken the grass. But a fertilizer that is high in Nitrogen and low in Phosphate and Potash will create too much top growth and not enough root growth or energy storage for recovery and over-wintering. A balanced fertilizing program for your lawn will include all three main elements along with some of the micro-nutrients also needed by the grass. Micro-nutrients are minerals like Iron, Manganese, Zinc, Boron, and Sulfur.
Warm-season grasses require more fertilizer than cool-season grasses. For example, Bermuda lawns will need 1 pound of Nitrogen per month of the growing season to spread rapidly and keep a deep, dark color. This will mean two or three more applications than Fescue lawns.
One last thing to remember is that early fall is the most important time of year to fertilize your lawn. It ensures your lawn stays healthy through tougher, colder winter months.
The key benefits of lawn fertilization include:
- Provides dark green rich turf color
- Keeps grass healthy
- Keeps grass thick, helping to keep the weeds out
- Nitrogen boosts growth and the green color of turf
- Potassium strengthens a lawns resistance to drought and disease
- Phosphorous feeds grass seedlings and turf root development
Mulching
Mulching can be one of the most beneficial things you can do for your soil and your plants. A layer of mulch will help prevent the germination weeds to keep them from growing, help moderate the soil temperature and retain moisture during dry weather, reducing the need for watering. Mulching your beds and garden will help provide essential nutrients to the soil of your plants by keeping organic material close to the roots and surrounding areas which in turn promotes strong growth and healthy plants and flowers.
Mulches also can be used to enhance the look of your garden to provide a great finished product. Many bark mulches provide a uniformly rich brown color that contrasts with the plants. The mulch helps keep plants clean by reducing the splash of soil onto leaves during rainstorms and helps infiltration of the rainfall into the garden.
Mulch is a cost-efficient, highly effective way to promote a beautiful and healthy landscape and garden that offers a multitude of benefits year-round.
If you have questions or need to speak to one of our landscapers, please call us at 512-306-0505.
