How To Green Up Your Lawn
Having a greener lawn might sometimes feel impossible, but there are ways in which you can make your lawn look beautiful and green. Best of all, there are gardening hacks that will ensure you can achieve this at a faster rate.
Should you use nitrogen to get a greener lawn? While nitrogen can help you to boost your grass health and make it gain a deeper green color, there are some important things to bear in mind.
We’ll get to that and more in this guide! You can achieve a greener lawn without putting in a lot of effort, so read on to find out how to maintain a green lawn.
How To Green Up Your Lawn Without Harming It
There are no quick fixes when it comes to getting a healthier lawn, but there are some healthy shortcuts you can take. Let’s explore some of the most effective ways in which you can green up your lawn so it looks its best while being healthy.
Mow Your Grass More Regularly
While you should never cut your grass too short as this will make it susceptible to disease, during the summer you should cut your grass every three days.
Make sure you only cut off one-third of the grass height at the most, as you don’t want to expose the brown areas that are at the base of the grass.
When mowing your grass, the point to bear in mind is that you want to cut off the top of your grass so that it can grow thicker.
This will make it look greener, and the benefit of having thicker grass is that it will prevent weeds from sprouting and competing with the grass for nutrients.
Maintain Your Mower
You might be cutting your grass properly, such as by not cutting the blades too short, but your lawnmower could be the reason why your grass isn’t looking healthy.
You need to sharpen the mower’s blades regularly, check its oil and filter, and change its spark plugs so that it works effectively. If your mower has dull blades, these will tear your lawn grass instead of cut it, which will cause the grass blades to get brown tips.
Start “Grasscycling”
You shouldn’t throw away the grass clippings that are left behind after you mow your lawn. Leaving them on your lawn is known as grasscycling.
It’s beneficial to your grass because these clippings decompose and release nitrogen and other nutrients into your soil. As a bonus, these grass clippings are natural mulch so that your grass can better hold onto water.
Add Iron To Your Lawn
This is a hack you might not know about because it’s what professionals use to make the grass greener. You should apply iron to your lawn during spring to give it a deeper green color.
Note that iron won’t boost your grass growing speed, but it’s good for low-maintenance gardening as it won’t require you to water or mow your lawn more regularly. You can add iron to your lawn easily – simply apply a granulated supplement directly to the grass with a drop spreader.
Water Your Grass Thoroughly
Don’t water your grass too regularly with small amounts of water. It’s better to do thorough watering three times a week. The soil should be moist at one inch below the surface.
This practice will make your grass greener because of how it encourages the roots to move deeper into the ground. It’s a quick way to make your lawn look greener and healthier!
Apply A Fertilizer That’s Rich In Nitrogen
You should apply a nitrogen-rich fertilizer to your lawn to give the grass a boost so it can grow faster. It will also look beautifully green. You should apply it once or twice during the grass growing season, but avoid putting in too much as giving your lawn too much nitrogen can cause harm to your lawn.
When your grass grows quicker you should water and mow it more regularly. This is important to keep it green and ensure it can maintain its vibrant color.
Kill Weeds When They’re Growing
You should kill weeds as soon as you see them. If you leave them to grow and spread their seeds, you’ll be dealing with an invasion of them and they’ll compete with your grass.
You can use herbicides to kill weeds. These are effective because they enter the plant leaves and travel through the rest of the plant to kill it off.
It’s important to apply herbicides to the weeds when they’re growing, which happens during the warmer months. If you try to apply these products to weeds when they’re not growing during the colder times of the year, this will prevent the herbicide from being absorbed by the plant.
Reseed Your Lawn At The Right Time Of Year
You should reseed your lawn during late summer or early fall to thicken your grass. This time of the year is ideal because the weather is cooler and damper, both of which will encourage seed germination. You should follow this rule whether you’re seeding your entire lawn or just some bare patches.
When seeding your lawn, a professional tip is to use approximately 15 seeds per square inch of lawn. If you put down too many seeds, you will end up with a lawn that’s too populated with grass, and the seeds will compete for sunlight and nutrients.
Avoid Grass Wear And Tear
You might be stressing your lawn without realizing it. For example, if your children regularly play on the grass or you move heavy gardening equipment across certain areas of your lawn.
Try to change where your kids play and where you transport equipment so that you don’t stress out certain patches of your lawn.
What About Painting Your Lawn?
If you need to get greener grass ASAP, such as if you have to follow HOA rules, there is a quick-fix solution that you should consider – lawn paint.
This gets applied to the grass blades so that you can coat them with green paint. These paint products are made of natural ingredients that are safe for your grass and won’t damage it.
Lawn paint shouldn’t be used on your grass all year ‘round because it’s a temporary solution to keep your grass green. What’s great about it is that it gives your grass a chance to heal and improve while looking good.
Generally, lawn paint products can last for about three months.
Should You Use Grass Seed Or Grass Sod?
Planting grass seed is an affordable option to ensure you can grow a healthier lawn. These seeds come in a variety of grass types and you can plant the seeds pretty easily without needing assistance from gardening professionals.
Grass seed is also affordable and can be cheaper than buying sod.
By comparison, sod gets placed over your soil and it takes a couple of weeks for its roots to connect with the ground. Sod gives you immediate results and if you purchase high-quality sod it won’t have weeds growing in it.
Sod is also convenient because as soon as you establish it, you can expose it to lawn traffic. The drawbacks of sod are that it can be expensive to buy and, unlike grass seed, it comes in limited grass types.
Related Questions
What can you do with areas of your lawn where grass doesn’t grow?
You might have areas in your lawn that just don’t grow grass no matter what you do. A shade-tolerant ground cover or clover can work well in these areas to make them look good.
What’s the best fertilizer for greener lawns?
A 12-12-12 fertilizer is popular for boosting a lawn’s greenness. But it needs to be used with a slow-release fertilizer so that the grass’s color will be maintained.
Note that a 12-12-12 fertilizer has 12 percent nitrogen, 12 percent potassium, and 12 percent phosphate.
Conclusion
If you want to make your lawn greener, there are things you can do to keep unattractive grass at bay. These methods don’t have to be difficult to achieve.
In this article, we’ve featured some of the best methods to try so that you keep your lawn healthier and greener without harming it or putting it under stress.
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