Photo: Giffin & Crane General Contractors, Inc.

Summertime is a time for fun, sun and lawn care. In fact, people take great pride in their lawns, but they are especially vigilant during summer. If they don’t pay attention, the summer heat can actually pose a threat to their lawn.

In this article, we will present you with 4 tips to help you keep your lawn alive through the summer heat.

1. Water At The Right Time of the Day

Many people feel that you can water any time of day, and still have a healthy lawn. The fact is, it is quite the contrary. It all has to do with the timing of sunlight.

Photosynthesis needs sunlight to take place. If you water at night, photosynthesis cannot take place and you could introduce lawn disease into the soil.

On the other hand, irrigating your lawn during the heat of the day is no good either. The soil will only absorb a small part of it due to evaporation.

So the best time to water your lawn is in the morning, just before or just as the sun is coming up. The soil can properly absorb all the water you gave it, in time for the sunlight to do the rest, paving the way for optimum photosynthesis.

Photo: Arcadia Studio

2. Water For Deep Roots

To have a healthy lawn, you need deep roots. Watering at the right intervals will help you achieve that.

Watering that is too frequent will make your root system shallow. If you want to develop deep roots, give your lawn two or three long soaks per week, and again, in the morning.

This will ensure that, through the brutal summer months when the heat can do plenty of damage, your lawn will be alive and well, with strong roots to boot.

Photo: Ryan Street & Associates

3. Give Your Lawn Some Air

Aerating your lawn – the process of pushing holes at six inch intervals all over your lawn – allows nutrients to get to the roots, helps it absorb water better, making it thick and healthy.

However, aerating is not something that you do like watering your lawn. It’s something that’s done once in early and late spring, and early fall.

Aerating your lawn can be done with a machine, especially if you have a large lawn. However, you can take a garden fork to poke into your lawn at intervals of six inches all over your lawn.

4. Mow At a Higher Height

Many people cut their lawns short so they don’t have to mow as often. This could be damaging to your grass.

If you cut your lawn too short, the roots of the grass are more exposed to the scorching heat, and could dry out fast. Cutting the grass at a higher height will leave the grass blades long, providing more protection for the roots.

Summary

We learned that watering 2-3 times a week, with long morning soaks, aerating your lawn and mowing at a higher height will all contribute to a real healthy lawn. We hope that you picked up some good tips that you can use so that your lawn will s

Do your neighbours have the greenest lawn on the block but you can’t figure out how do they possibly do it? We’ve scourged the web and asked lawn care professionals for their help in revealing the secrets once and for all. Turns out, maintaining a lush green lawn isn’t that difficult if you have a few basics in place. Here are some lawn-care tricks you’ve got to start doing and some that you should definitely stop if you want to get that green lawn you’ve been dreaming about!

Water Your Lawn the Right Way

The trick to watering your lawn is to water it heavily, but less often. This is a great way to keep your lawn looking greener for longer periods of time. When you water deeply, you are encouraging deep weed growth which helps your grass stay greener longer during heat and drought. Try watering your lawn with at leash 1 inch of water, once a week. You can easily put this to the test by placing a measuring cup or container out on the lawn and then measuring the water at 1 inch.

Make sure you are watering your lawn early in the morning instead of in the afternoon or at nighttime. Watering in the mid-day sun, will simply make all the water evaporate and you could also risk burning your grass this way. While watering at nighttime, is a great way to promote mold-growth on your grass. Water sits on the blades of grass and doesn’t have time to dry properly during the night, which makes this a big no-no.

Cut Your Grass Correctly

In order to have healthy, green grass it’s important to know at which length the cut your grass. It may seem like a great idea to mow your grass as short as possible to avoid having to mow it again in a week or two, but this may not always be the best for your grass. Mowing lengths really depend on the type of grass you have. Empire zoyasia should be mowed at 0.75 – 3 inches, white Zenith zoysia grows well when cut at 1.5 inches. Make sure you find out exactly what type of grass you have before mowing. If you are not sure, most lawn experts recommend to never remove more than one third of the total grass blade length.

Avoid Walking on Your Lawn

It may seem tough especially if you have kids, but try to avoid walking all over your lawn especially in the spring time. In the spring, you grass is waking up from being dormant in the winter and this is one of the most important times to take care of your lawn the right way. You need to promote aeration of your lawn and get it ready for a long and possibly dry summer ahead. For aeration, you have use a machine called a lawn aerator to create holes in the ground, loosening hard earth and allowing nutrients to seep into your lawn.

Call a Professional

Sometimes, calling a professional is the best way to save money and time by getting your lawn routine right the first time. I have tried a bunch of different lawn-care techniques but sometimes one solution doesn’t fit all lawns. Depending on your lawn type, your climate, terrain, and other factors, it can sometimes get tricky to treat your lawn the right way.

Companies like TruGreen provide lawn care, tree and shrub care and also has a lawn program with all natural and organic services available. If you have pets and kids, going all-organic when it comes to lawn care is probably the best and safest way to treat your lawn. TruGreen is by far one of the best lawn-care geniuses and giving them a call can solve all your lawn problems. Getting started is easy, head on over to TruGreen to request a quote and have any of your lawn nightmares answered!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of TruGreen. The opinions and text are all mine.

Photo: Harwich Homes

Achieving and maintaining a green lawn that seems to run for miles is not an easy task, but it’s not that hard either if you know exactly what you are doing. Deep watering isn’t always the case in order to keep your lawn looking it’s best. We’ve talked to local lawn experts on how to achieve a green lawn all throughout spring and a long hot summer. Here’s what we found out:

Mow Your Lawn Properly

You may now know it, but mowing your lawn plays a vital part in how thick and green your grass gets. Regular trimming is an important part of the process and knowing how to trim properly is key. Cut little (5 cm) and often instead of trimming too close to the ground. You may also want to switch directions and patterns every time you trim to avoid pressing the blades in the same direction every time.

Prepare for a Drought

In the summer months when there is less rain and hotter temperatures, make sure you prepare your grass for this kind of period. One way to do this is to treat your lawn right by mowing less often and keep your grass longer. Longer grass holds more water and stays greener longer, while trimming your grass short will have it wilted, yellow, and dried up in no time.

Give Back Nutrients

Every time we mow our grass, we are actually removing vital nutrients and vitamins in the grass that keep it looking lush and green. In order to keep our grass looking this way, we need to give back those nutrients. One way is to fertilize grass in the beginning of spring and every four to five weeks. There are tons of special lawn mixes that you can purchase from your local garden center to achieve just that.

Repair Patches and Bare Spots

Take a look at your lawn; you most likely have one bare patch that needs to be fixed up. Dead lawn patches are one of the most common problems when it comes to lawn care and maintenance. They usually form because they have been infested with weeds such as dandelions and crabgrass, or maybe have been a regular potty area for your dog. Luckily bare grass patches are easy to get fixed up. Here are a few options:

Photo: Andrew Renn

– Purchase grass sod (the grass you buy rolled up). This is an easy instant lawn fix since you can simply cut the grass and plant it where needed. The only problem is that grass sod may be a little hard to blend in with the rest of your lawn.

– Plant more grass seed. First mix your grass seed with soil, sprinkle over your bare patches and water regularly. Grass seed may take three weeks to germinate so be patient and persistent with your watering.

Hire an Expert

If you are having big troubles with your lawn sometimes it’s best to let the professionals handle it. I highly recommend considering TruGreen lawn care, tree and shrub care to professionally take care of your lawn. If necessary you can also request all natural and organic services from them, which makes it perfect, if you have kids and pets. To get started, simply request a quote and see if they would be the right fit for your lawn.

Water Right

Watering your lawn the right way will save you a ton of money on water, as well as keep your lawn in the best possible shape. A water hose timer is a must-have, as there are many factors that come into play with a watering schedule. Make sure not to water during the day as water evaporates too quickly. Also do not water at night since water sits on top of the grass and mold can form quickly and easily. The best time to water is right in the morning from 4:00 – 10:00. It is also best to water vigorously, once a week for an hour or so instead of every day for 15 minutes.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of TruGreen,ca. The opinions and text are all mine.