Spring Lawn Preperation
Hey there!
Spring is HERE!! Just like typical Idaho fashion, it went from sub-freezing temperatures to 70 degrees. A question we hear a lot this time of year is, “What do I need to do or have you guys do to get my lawn set up for success right now?”
Several things should be done every spring, and I am going to list those and go into detail about how they are done, what they will help, and the benefits of doing them.
Dethatching/Power raking your lawn:
What dethatching your lawn is, is where you mechanically remove the thatch out of your lawn. What we do is go over the lawn with either a hand rake, a power rake, or a spring-tine rake attached to a machine. After we get all of the dead material up, we then collect the grass and haul it off. All 3 methods have the same result: removing dead grass from the lawn. This benefits the lawn because it gets the dead material out and stands up the live grass. It allows the grass roots to get air, lets them dry out, alleviates any possibility of fungal issues like snow mold, and, most importantly, speeds up the recovery from VOLE damage. Voles are nasty little buggers that tunnel under the snow through your grass and make nests in your yard over the winter. Some people think that the areas of grass need reseeded, 99% of the time this is not the case, and as long as you can get the dead material out of there and get the grass air and let it dry out, the grass bounces back extremely fast.
Fertilizing your lawn
When you apply a high rate nitrogen-based fertilizer to your lawn in the spring, it gives it a hot shot of nutrients and kick starts the growth for the season. It sets your lawn up for the rest of the season if you can give it a head start by giving it the nutrients it needs right from the start. You can buy a mix of fertilizer from your local nursery, like Sunnyside Gardens here in Idaho Falls/Ammon, and spread it with a push spreader, or have us come out with the proprietary blend of fertilizer that we use in the spring and have us take care of it for you.
Core lawn aeration
This service is where you mechanically remove core plugs from your lawn. This is EXTREMELY important in our area because of the high clay content in our soil. The longer you go in between aertions, the more compacted your soil will be. Compacted soil has a lot of negative impacts on your lawn. It can make your water penetration and absorption terrible because the ground is too hard to permeate. It causes root compaction and poor root development because it is similar to growing grass on concrete. Overall soil compaction is just terrible for lawn health. Core aeration is also the only way to remove a true thatch layer. There are several ways to do a core aeration, and there are better ways to do it vs. others. You can buy an attachment to pull behind with weight on it behind a ride-on vehicle, whether it be a 4-wheeler or a lawn mower. You can rent a walk-behind aerator, or you can have us come and do it with our stand-on machines that can pull up to 5” deep plugs. The pull-behind style aerators and the rented walk-behind aerators do not pull very deep plugs and do not do nearly as good a job of core aeration as our ride-on aerators. Not only are you getting better aeration when you hire us to do it, but you're also saving the time and energy it takes for you to do it yourself.
Reap the rewards of the work!
Now, turn those sprinklers on and sit back and watch the magic of spring transition your lawn! Call us with any questions whatsoever.
Thank you! Until the next blog,
Hollis Lloyd :)
