Spring is in the air and in the ground as well. The sunshine is warm, the breeze is pleasantly cool, and lazy hum of neighborhood lawn mowers is welcome sound to harsh scraping of snow shovels. Winter is hard on everyone, especially your lawn. So spring is welcome respite after Old Man winter finally makes his long overdue exit. After months of icy, severe conditions, including pounds upon pounds of snow, your landscaping and lawn can really, really, take a beating, leaving it in great need of care and lawn maintenance.
Aside from cherry red pick up trucks, apple pie, and America’s favorite past time, there’s nothing more American than having a lush, green lawn. American household’s take a great deal of pride in their lawns and landscaping, and spend roughly $6.4 billion — yes billion — a year on lawn maintenance and care. Now that’s a lot of green — pun intended!
So where’s all that cash going to exactly? According to data from the Professional Lawn Care Association of America, American homeowners spend a lot of money on fertilizers, lawnmowers, seed, herbicides, string trimmers, and other kinds of equipment all in an effort to perfect their lawns. Everyone knows what a perfect lawn looks like, the kind that’s soft and lush like carpet, the kind that feels cool and refreshing between on your feet, and the kind that makes the Joneses’ green with envy.
The key to having a healthy, lush, and green summer lawn is be proactive about your spring lawn maintenance. The severe conditions of winter can actually drastically change the soil pH in addition to compacting the soil. This creates the ideal conditions for parasites, weeds, and other pesky conditions that can lead to lawn disease. As such, it’s crucial that homeowners spring into action as soon as spring makes its debut to clean, fertilize, and mow their yards as early as possible in the season.
What can homeowners do once the snow finally melts to reveal invasive plants and weeds, bare spots, and other issues that can create a lackluster lawn? First and foremost, don’t panic. There are plenty of ways you can revive your lawn and landscaping without costing you an arm and a leg or more.
Once your lawn dries out after the snow and sludge has melted, it’s important to give it a light raking as soon as possible. This gives it an opportunity to breathe as well as an opportunity for you to assess the damage, which can add unnecessary stress to lawn and make it more vulnerable to disease and weeds. A common problem you may find when raking your lawn is uneven spots, caused by the extreme pressure of the snow. Aside from being an eyesore, uneven lawn spots can lead to poor drainage in low areas, while high areas will be scraped off by your lawnmower. An easy and effective way to tackle this common lawn maintenance problem is to simply take a shovel and use it to cut away raised areas and then using the excess to fill in depressed areas.
Another lawn care issue you may face once the snow melts is soil compaction in high traffic areas. This happens when soil becomes so tightly compacted that grass has a hard time taking root and growing, which in turn allows the stronger weeds to thrive and grow. Luckily, there’s an easy way to test your lawn for this common issue. Take a garden fork and stick it into the ground. If it isn’t able to penetrate the soil at least two inches, then your soil is compacted and needs to be loosened up with an aerator.
Another common issue when it comes to spring lawn maintenance is getting rid of thatch, which is a stubborn tangle of surface roots that are commonly found in grasses such as Bermuda and Zoysia, which are known for spreading. In cases that are particularly bad, a thick spread of thatch will make even harder for moisture and nutrients to make their way down into the soil and properly nourish your lawn.
