Lawn care doesn’t need to be a pain in the butt. Getting your lawn to look amazing takes several steps and for the uninformed, a good deal of effort.
Lawn Care Secret #1
In this article, we’re going to expose a lawn care secret that most Alaskan home owners might not be aware of. You might be anticipating some sort of time-intensive DYI home concoction. Our secret is quite the opposite. Rather than taking extra steps to make your lawn look better, we’re going to recommend the opposite. That’s right, cut out some of your lawn care practices and your lawn just might prosper.
Stop Catching Your Grass
Lawn care secret #1: stop catching your grass. Many of us go through painstaking efforts to catch and dispose of our grass clippings. Though this does create a nice clean yard for the kids to play in, it hinders the prosperity of your grass. If your yard is struggling to come back to life from a dry winter, removing the grass catch from your lawn mower will help speed up its natural process. Don’t take this the wrong way, it’s still a great idea to spread lawn fertilizer and the spring fixings. So removing your grass catch isn’t the only step you need to take. Along with plenty of water, a good amount of fertilizer and regular cutting, this trick will quickly accelerate the growth of your grass.
Lawn Care Clippings
Don’t collect them. Don’t try and rake them or remove them in any way. If you cut your grass twice a week the clippings will be so small they’ll decompose much faster. These little clippings will fall to the floor of your yard and quickly break down to usable materials for your yard. They’ll add to the top layer of soil, as well as saturate the ground with their nutrients. Again, mowing twice a week, this process will happen quickly enough that you’ll have a surprisingly low amount of residue on the bottoms of your shoes. It’s still not as clean as catching your grass, but doing this for the first month of spring will jumpstart your yard into looking beautiful all summer long.
Less Lawn Care, Better Lawn
Without the need to use your grass catcher, or empty the darn thing, you’ll be able to mow your yard in less than half the time. Just run over it quickly and be done. Mowing any less than twice a week will leave a bigger mess of grass clippings behind, and take longer for the clippings to decompose. So for that reason its really best to mow fairly often. Even if you’re mowing more often with this trick, you’re likely spending less time over-all per week with your lawn care.
Lawn Care Secret #2
Another piece of good practice for lawn care is to alternate the direction of your mowing every time you mow. If you normally start in one corner and mow vertically up and down your yard, try mowing horizontally every other mow to create a grid effect. This will pull the grass into a larger variety of directions and help create less stress on the grass. This also creates a nice grid effect on your yard, which most home owners would agree is desirable.
Conclusion
Mulching your clippings back into your lawn isn’t for everyone. In Alaska, we really like to enjoy our yard for the short summer that we have it. So if the clippings mess is just too much for you, then stick to what works best for your yard. For more information on lawn care, visit our lawn care page by clicking here. To read more about the conscious battle between mulching and catching your grass, visit our friends over at All About Lawns by clicking here.
Good luck with your lawn care, and as always don’t hesitate to reach out for a quote if you need help with your lawn care needs.