Three Steps to A Great Lawn

Just a little care now can make a big difference later in the season.

Your lawn may look sadder than a termite at a concrete festival, but it certainly doesn't have to stay that way. Giving your grass a bit of attention toward the end of winter will pay off big-time this spring and summer.

And here's the very best part: You don't even have to do the work yourself. You can convince, incite, goad, coerce, cajole, inveigle, sweet-talk, or (if all else fails) pay someone else to perform the following trio of simple tasks that will make your lawn thicker, healthier, and highly deserving of praise.

Step 1: Aerate

Compacted soil is hard for water, air, and roots to penetrate, and that makes it hard on grass. So go to your local equipment rental store, and get a core aerator. A half-day's rental should cost around $40. This machine, which resembles a large rotary tiller, uses steel tubes to take plugs of soil from the lawn and deposit them on the ground. Aerating once a year reduces compaction and increases the vigor of your lawn.

Warning to aspiring fashion models: Safely controlling a core aerator is like restraining John Goodman at a midnight buffet. It takes muscles. So unless you're as pumped up as Hans and Franz from Saturday Night Live, get a manly man to help you.

Step 2: Mow the Old Grass Low

Those with cool-season grass (blue-grass, fescue, or perennial ryegrass) can skip this part. But those with warm-season lawns (Bermuda, buffalo grass, centipede, St. Augustine, or Zoysia) need to mow that old, brown grass low at the end of winter to remove thatch, an accumulation of dead stems and leaves. Heavy thatch prevents water and nutrients from reaching the roots and promotes disease.

I use a mulching mower to cut my Bermuda lawn to ½-inch and leave the clippings in place to decompose. Mow other types to 1 inch. If you use a regular mower, bag the clippings; then compost or discard them. Mowing low lets more sun reach and warm the soil, encouraging the grass to green up.

Step 3: Weed Prevention

As the temperature reaches 70 degrees, seeds of lawn weeds sprout. Stop them by applying a pre-emergence lawn weed preventer such as Scotts Halts Crabgrass Preventer, Vigoro Ultra Turf Pre-emergence Crabgrass and Weed Control, or Green Light Crabgrass Preventer in late winter. When watered in, it forms a barrier atop the soil to keep weeds from sprouting. (Don't aerate after you put down the chemical, or you'll break the barrier.)

However, if you're sowing grass seeds this spring, don't put down any of these products. Weed preventers keep grass seeds from coming up too. And that would make you madder than a funeral director in Brigadoon.

STEVE BENDER

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Mar 2005
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