Every landowner in Oakville or Mississauga wishes to have a healthy, lush green lawn that can be the envy of the entire neighborhood. It not only enhances the aesthetics of their home but also brings great benefits to the environment and resists invasion by weeds, insects, moss, and diseases.
However, achieving the perfect green space for your home requires a lot of hard work. It involves a good lawn care routine, which is a combination of simple DIY tasks and the expertise of the best landscaping Oakville professionals.
If you’re looking for help maintaining a lawn or yard, this post shares some helpful tips on achieving a lush lawn that meets your expectations.
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Fertilize Your Lawn
Choosing the right fertilizer is one way to make your lawn greener and healthier. The best lawn service companies suggest regularly using lawn fertilizers that contain nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous to support the grass well.
These nutrients help your grass grow strong from the roots and keep it healthy in the long run.
Another important thing to keep in mind here is the timing of when you apply fertilizer. It typically depends on your lawn type. For instance, unlike cool-season grass, which generally needs fertilizer at both the start of spring and fall, warm-season lawns require fertilizers more frequently.
To get the best results, companies with expertise in landscaping in Mississauga always suggest following the manufacturer’s instructions when applying fertilizer and refraining from adding either too little or too much of it. Instead, make sure to spread the fertilizer as directed and water afterward.
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Test Your Soil
Apart from seeding and fertilizing your lawn occasionally, another important step in keeping your lawn lush green is testing the pH level of your yard’s soil once every three years. This will help you ensure an optimal soil pH level for a healthy lawn.
For the best results, a soil test should be conducted in early spring to help you accurately determine the acidity or alkalinity of the soil. This pH test allows you to identify the important elements missing from the soil, such as calcium, sulfur, or magnesium, which can affect the soil’s ability to grow and need replenishment.
In Oakville and Mississauga, lawns tend to lean on the acidic side, where limestone applications are a great way to correct the pH of the soil and bring it back into balance.
Some lawn care companies in Mississauga and Oakville, like Dependable Lawn, conduct soil tests on their customers’ yards to ensure the tailored treatment they develop meets the specific needs of each lawn.
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Feed To Control Weeds In The Lawn
Fertilizing your lawn goes hand-in-hand with weed control. When you fertilize your grass, it takes in the necessary nutrients to expand its root system and cover any bare spots that are present.
If managed well, a weed and feed system will make your grass healthy and crowd out most weeds. Once the weed leaves absorb the weed and feed, it will kill the weed. Meanwhile, the fertilizer will enrich your soil with nutrients to support grass growth.
It is important to keep in mind that these fertilizers are not necessarily organic. So, since weed and feed for lawns should only be done, at most, twice a year, the best way to ensure it’s done correctly is to hire professional lawn treatment service providers.
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Water Your Lawn Adequately
Another simple way that several lawn clean-up services use to achieve a lush, green, and healthy lawn is to provide adequate moisture to the grass. However, it is also important to ensure you do not overwater the grass as it could lead to several issues, such as more weeds, root damage, or wet, muddy lawn, making it difficult for grass to breathe.
The ideal way to fulfill the moisture needs of the grass is to use a good sprinkler system that serves as an additional source of water for the yard against the main source of water.
The idea here is to build a deep and robust root system that allows your grass to withstand extended periods of drought. You can achieve this by watering the grass only when it is required.
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Mow Your Grass Regularly
Mowing your lawn correctly regularly also helps your grass stay fresh and vigorous by promoting lateral growth. The best practice that many Mississauga landscaping service providers follow is to mow their lawn every week during the growing season and raise the blade in the fall to help the grass withstand the cold winter weather.
Here are some tips on how you can mow your lawn correctly –
- Since wet grass can clump together, leading to uneven cuts, mowing your lawn when dry is best.
- Before mowing, always sharpen your blades regularly, as dull blades can rip through the grass, causing damage to the roots.
- Always set your mower blades to the proper height, as cutting your grass too low can damage the blades and also make your lawn susceptible to diseases.
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Aerate Your Lawn
Aerating is an important process that improves air and water circulation in the soil. This, in turn, promotes root growth and helps reduce soil compaction.
Aerating your lawn is also an excellent way to improve its overall health and appearance, as it helps loosen compacted soil and thatch, thus improving drainage and air circulation.
Another benefit of aerating your lawn is that it helps the roots grow more deeply and promotes a healthier lawn. Apart from this, the process also helps reduce unnecessary thatch buildup, which can prevent water and other essential nutrients from reaching the roots of the grass.
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Manage The Shady Spots in Your Lawn Well
When it comes to optimal lawn growth, there are a lot of factors that play a role. Some of these could be lawn grass growth around young trees, leading to more shade and limiting the sun’s reach on the lawn.
Since water, sun, and nutrients are necessary for a lush green and thick grass, a lack of these can prevent you from achieving your goal.
The best lawn care in Mississauga suggests either raising or thinning the tree canopy to increase sunlight access to these lawn areas, thus improving the overall sun exposure.
If thinning the tree canopy isn’t enough, as there may be areas where grass may not grow well, professional lawn care companies in Mississauga suggest including mulch, decorative gravel, shade-loving ground cover, or simply a hardscape area.
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Try a New And Different Variety of Grass
Yet another way to achieve a healthy lawn is to know the type of turf you have. While most lawns use a mix of Kentucky Bluegrass and Perennial Rye, sod Oakville and sod Mississauga are the best options here as they are made up of healthy grass and may be able to recover even when exposed to hot temperatures.
If you have an older lawn, the best thing to do is renovate it because a few of the older turf varieties may not be able to manage the heat either. Newer grass varieties, such as a Tall Fescue mix, are better equipped to cope with hot temperatures and might do well under the sun.
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Inspect your lawn for moss
Moss is one thing that can accumulate to high levels in most lawns. However, it grows especially well in poorly drained and shaded areas. Although moss isn’t harmful to your lawn, it fills in the gaps at places where the turf is weak, thus preventing it from growing properly.
Moss growth also indicates other lawn issues such as low soil pH, poor drainage, excessive watering, compacted soil, or low fertility.
The ideal way to combat moss in your lawn is by applying a moss control treatment along with a power raking approach. This is simply because treating the moss alone and leaving it in place does not allow your lawn to fill back in enough to prevent future growth of the moss.
Professional lawn care in Oakville can help you prevent any moss-related lawn issues you have.
The Bottomline
Maintaining a healthy and lush green lawn can be a source of great pride for homeowners. Fortunately, the task is easier than it may seem if managed in collaboration with the best lawn care service company, such as Dependable Lawn.
Following the above-mentioned tips and maintaining routine care with us ensure you have a healthy and thriving lawn this summer.