3 Springtime Lawn Care Mistakes

As the snow disappears and the temperatures climb, winter-weary Canadians head outside to survey the damage their yards have sustained. Most issues can be remedied, especially with Nutri-Lawn's help, but some home owners do more damage than they realize. Here's some mistakes you may be making as you prepare your yard for spring:

Walking on your grass too soon

This is a hard one for most Canadians who are just barely holding on until the temperatures rise above 5 degrees, but walking on your grass too soon after the snow melts can be detrimental. As tempting as it may be to put on your rubber boots and go sloshing around your soggy lawn, it will actually compact the soil, causing your grass to grown in unevenly. While you may want to finally rejoice in the warmth of the sun, it's best to leave your yard clean-up until the soil has dried out a bit. If your soil has already dried and is really compact, aerating is important. An aerating roller pokes holes in the soil which allows moisture and oxygen to penetrate, making for healthier grass.

Not Dethatching

What is thatch you may ask? It is that mixture of living and dead plant matter that sits between the greenery of your grass and your soil. When you can finally see your grass for the first time after the snow melts, you may notice light brownish patches amongst the green grass. This organic debris isn't able to break down as fast as it is produced, resulting in thatch. A thin layer of thatch is important because it can help protect our lawns from winter damage. It's because of this that home owners just decide they'll let the thatch bio-degrade on its own, not realizing that a thick layer of thatch can suffocate the yard or can harbour insects or disease-ridden organisms. That being said, dethatching can be hard on your lawn, so it's a good idea to leave it to the professionals. Nutri-Lawn Ottawa is able to determine how much dethatching is necessary, and what kind of follow-up (i.e. irrigation and fertilization) is needed to ensure you have the best yard on your street.

Fertilizing too soon

If you happen to be in a home improvement store on the first nice weekend in spring, you may notice that every other person is walking out with a bag of fertilizer thrown over their shoulder. As you know, the purpose of fertilizer is to help grass grow green and thick and healthy. Before fertilizer is applied to your yard, you want your grass to have awoken from its dormant season and greened up a bit, which, in Ontario, isn't typically until the beginning of May. If you fertilize before the soil and the grass is ready, you may be wasting fertilizer or worse, helping the weeds to grow faster than they already do. 

Even if you have been making these three lawn care mistakes, hope is not lost. Nutri-Lawn Ottawa is here to help. Contact them for a free consultation.