How To Keep Your Lawn Disease Free

Lawns are a little like our bodies – look after your body well and it’ll resist diseases. Sure, a cough or flu may wander by, but we all know you can’t cure them, you just treat the symptoms and let your body do the rest. Your lawns are the same. A strong thick and healthy lawn will resist most diseases. If a disease does drop by, rather than panicking and throwing every known chemical at it, stop and just treat the symptoms initially. That may include reducing water, aerating the soil a little, or adding or reducing nutrients.

Most lawn diseases are really the fault of the gardener. We generally don’t like to think that our gardening habits are causing problems, but they invariably do. If disease does strike, look at your gardening habits and see if you are guilty of any of these:

• Improper mowing techniques – mowing too short is the most frequent problem
• Over watering
• Under watering
• Watering at the wrong time of the day
• Damaging your lawn – leaving a child’s paddling pool on the lawn, kicking divots when playing
• Changing your lawn’s environment – a lawn chair can reduce sunlight, as will a parked car, boat or trailer
• Poor gardening methods – not removing leaf litter, leaving piles of grass clippings
• Using too much pesticide
• Using too much or the wrong fertilizer
• Not using enough fertilizer

If you continue those practices, and a disease is present, that disease will most likely thrive and spread further. All of those practices place stress on your lawn, and this is what makes it susceptible to disease. Reduce the stress, and improve your lawns health, and it will fight off diseases.

Of course, like the human body, there are times when disease strikes and your lawn cannot win the fight on its own. That’s when you should consider using alternative including chemicals if required. However, that should be the last resort, not the first. Once your lawn has beaten off any disease, you can repair your damaged lawn, then build up its strength by using the right gardening techniques instead.