Posts Tagged ‘lawn care’

The Life Of Your Lawn Can Be Increase Through Proper Grass Installation

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Those who want to enjoy the benefit of nature can take into account installing a lawn in the garden. You are able to walk, play or maybe sit relaxed in the properly kept and well designed lawn. In addition to adding the attractiveness of the house and garden, they are eco-friendly also. The happy state of affair is that you can develop and maintain the lawn care with maximum ease. Yet before you start the work, you should understand how lawns are made, which type of grass suits the climate and how they can be maintained properly. If you want to own a problem-free lawn, give importance to proper grass installation.

First of all, you need to know what type of soil suits your space before planting the grass. You should avoid a turf of clay wince it would prevent the formation of roots and growth by hindering water and nutrients reaching the root system. Some other loose types of soil and sand also fail in this regard. In fact what you need is a turf of balanced soil, which is not loose or packed. Additionally, you have the option to make the soil suitable for a lawn by changing its composition. You can tighten the loose soil by removing some sand and adding more loam to the remaining soil. Organic In order to make softer a tight turf, mulches and humus can be added.

The Way To Compost Your Backyard Trimmings Without Getting A Big Recycling Bin

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

If you have a big yard, your yard trimmings will probably be too much for your regular compost bin. You see, grass, trees and shrubs tends to grow a lot during the spring and summer months so you end up with plenty of yard trimmings every now and then. Fortunately, you need not worry about how to compost such amount of yard trimmings. In fact, you need not even use a composting bin to recycle your grass clippings. After cutting your grass, just leave the grass cuttings on your lawn and let them dry out under the sun.

Basically leaving your grass clippings on your garden has become rather fashionable these days. Grasscycling, as specialists call this, is considered as an environmentally sound practice. You don’t will need to use a recycling bin when you recycle your grass clippings. To practice grasscycling at home, you basically spread the grass clippings on your lawn evenly. It won’t far more than a few days before the grass clippings dry out and decompose so your yard is not going to required look topsy-turvy for long.

Getting Your Garden Ready For Summer

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

After a long harsh winter, springtime is time to rejuvenate your garden and make sure it is ready for the time of year when you use it the most, summer. Owners of the best kept lawns know that work starts well before the sunshine begins.

The first thing to do when preparing your garden is to rake in thatch and any other solid matter that can clutter up the grass such as clippings and leaves. This can trap moisture in the soil and mould. You can make an exception based on the climate you live in but otherwise raking would have the best impact in autumn, ideally when you are raking up fallen leaves, you might also want to rake up any grass clippings when you mow.

If particular areas of grass have been subject to traffic and activity, such as a footpath or driveway, the soil will compact squeezing out all the air. This will suffer from excessive run-off and provide for a poor root bed for new grass to grow. To fix this you will need to aerate the area which can be done in a variety of ways ultimately perforating the surface of the soil. One fun way is to wear spiked shoes and walk up and down on the damaged area.

Tips for Natural Lawn and Garden Care

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

If you want to start getting involved with natural lawn and garden care the first step you are going to need to take is to find a natural lawn care product and even if one is advertised as being natural you are still going to want to read through the list of ingredients to make sure that it is all natural because some are listed as being so but are really not.

Basically the rule is that if you cannot pronounce an ingredient, it is not natural. You can also read reviews on a natural lawn and garden care product to learn more about it and decide whether or not it is going to be right for you.

Ideas

If you really want to offer natural lawn and garden care for the long term, there are a few ideas in particular that you are going to want to keep in mind. For one, you are going to want to mulch your grass clippings. This is completely natural and a great way to keep your grass and garden healthy.

Pruning The Garden

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

One of the most essential features in horticulture is pruning. Pruning means trimming and cutting of trees and plants at regular intervals to allow the plant for its prolific growth and at the same time make it look more aesthetic. Pruning is both an art a well as a skill which needs to be mastered well. Pruning is an art, because it cannot be done just any way you like. The plant may suffer in pruning instead, and hence it should be done at the right places only. Pruning is a skill because it has to be done precisely as well as correctly so that after cutting the tissues should heal properly too.

Regular pruning to remove damaged or diseased parts:

Removing any branches damaged due to weather or disease can be done by pruning. Crowns of trees need to be pruned at regular intervals to allow enough sunlight to circulate around all the parts of the tree. Some trees need not grow to very great heights and they have to be pruned to reduce unwanted height. Size of the tree should not be reduced greatly and pruning should be done just to remove the unwanted parts. Branches themselves sometimes obstruct other branches and hence such branches should be pruned.

Let’s Talk Organic Lawn Care

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Spring arrives and the smell of freshly mown grass fills the air. Which is your signal to begin the annual rituals of spreading synthetic lawn care products, firing up the mower and having at it against nature.

But you don’t have to continue your annual chemically focused lawn care routine. And you really can help your lawn kick the performance-enhancing drugs. Going with more eco friendly, sustainable methods that will still give you a verdant, emerald green lawn.

Now organic lawn care begins with the grasses you plant. It also involves watering wisely, feeding sustainably, mowing right, while dealing with weeds or pests organically. Let’s briefly learn what each entails and then some.

Going Native When Deciding Which Grass to Plant

Planting indigenous varieties means you can get away with watering, feeding and treating for pests less often – if at all. Since any species of grass suited to thrive in your local conditions is more apt to make it on it’s own naturally. That means you want to stick with grasses adapted to cool seasons across the northern tier, warm season grasses across the southern tier and more transitional strains if you live in-between.

The Beauty That’s The Dandelion

Friday, October 30th, 2009

When spring comes around, what do you love to do? There are plenty of people who do love spring because, for them, it symbolizes hope. They believe that after the months of cold that belongs to winter, spring is like a miracle. Just think of how dreary winter is and then how everything seems to come alive when spring comes around. Now that is the magic that spring brings. And with spring comes wonderful plants coming to life.

The dandelion is one of the plants that springs back to life when the season comes around. It is known for its beautiful flowers. And then there is that part which lawn owners or garden owners hate – when the plant chooses to live in their gardens or lawns. The dandelion to them is a weed and spring is when they are at its peak. This weed comes with broad leaves and has yellow flowers and is known as a perennial weed.

The War Against Sod Webworms

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

You can be called unfortunate. Those sodwebworms have found a place in your lawn. They have called it their own. Right now, they are already there starting to organize things so that it would really be home. And right now, you have no idea that such is going on. They may not look harmful but what they can do is the total opposite. You will start to know that you have these insects around your lawn when there are brown spots that appear that water could not cure. Do something about it now.

First off, you should know what they are. The thing about this insect is that they are not the ones with creepy fangs or things like that. In fact, you will usually see them as worms. They can be beige or brown or gray or green in color and they have these four rows of brown spots that you would see right by their stomach. Sod webworms are not even big. They grow to be about three quarters of an inch long and that is not much really. You can never be afraid of them. But your lawn or your garden will definitely be.

Organic Fertilizer Is Changing The Way We Garden Today

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Our lawns and gardens are craving something natural to help them thrive, the way nature intended. Fish emulsion has been a prime organic fertilizer used by our ancestors for centuries. I’m uncertain as to how anyone ever thought that synthetic fertilizers would benefit our environment, but someone did. Hands down, though, organic fertilizer out shines chemical fertilizers every time.

The best fish by-product to use for an organic fertilizer comes from the Menhaden fish. Menhaden meaning “that which manures”. Such a great name since manure is an excellent fertilizer too. The Menhaden fish is an organic and renewable source, serving North America for centuries as an extraordinary organic fertilizer. For centuries our ancestors used the Menhaden fish to make crops grow incredible yields?way before synthetic fertilizer was a twinkle in anyone’s eye.

A much desired quality of fish emulsion as organic fertilizer is that it offers instant gratification. One misconception many people have is that all organic fertilizers don’t act fast enough. True, some organic fertilizers are slow acting but not fish emulsion. Your plants benefit almost immediately after its application. Some other organic fertilizers leave you waiting. Often their ingredients need some time to decompose and release their nutrients. You have to be careful to store fish emulsion at room temperature so that it doesn’t degrade before you want it to as it will in excessive heat.

Lawn care – What To Do When Spring Is Coming?

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Start the spring off right with good lawn care and your lawn will thanks by growing green and pretty in the spring and summer seasons. Spring lawn care is important in that it is the time when you can catch, diagnose, and fix any grass issues like crabgrass. The good news is that spring lawn care can be finished in 5 simple steps. Make sure you follow these steps yearly when spring rolls out and your lawn will start looking better each year!

1. Clean up the Lawn Cleaning the lawn of any debris is the 1st in spring lawn care. This step includes raking any leftover leaves, branches, twigs, and so on. This will really help to guarantee an issue free first cutting.

2. Distribute Remaining Snow If any piles of snow have accumulated and not softened then you’ll need to get the spade out and break he snow pile apart. Simply spread the snow around the lawn in areas where there’s lots of sun. This is a critical step as the snow pile could cause the grass beneath to develop and grow slower than the rest of the grass.