Lawn Care Tips – Too Much Love Can Kill Your Lawn

As we endeavor to create that perfect lawn, sometimes our lawn care routine goes a little bit too far. The end result, rather than a ‘perfect’ lawn, we have a ‘perfectly dead’ lawn. Grass is just another plant. Like all plants, it has its basics needs – good soil, sunlight, water and food. Too much or too little and the problems begin.

Grass can be a strange beast. Of course, much depends on the type and variety of grass grown. Type, by-the-way, relates to the grass’s family. Is it a Buffalo or Rye, for example. Variety relates to the different grasses found in a  family. An example of this is Fine Fescue, Tall Fescue and Red Fescue – all from the Fescue family.

Knowing your grass family and which variety it belongs to is important. When it comes to blends, we often just look at it as being ‘grass’ when in fact the blend will often have seeds from different families. These blends are generally designed to compliment each other in similar conditions. When it comes to lawn care, looking after the grasses in your blend is essential.

In droughts, more lawns die due to ‘love’ than those that die due to lack of water. Why? We tend to over water our lawns. This leads to root rot and other diseases. During drought times, many grasses will go dormant and wait until the spring rains. If you want to keep it green, don’t cut it too short and, when watering, more less often is best. In other words, a deep weekly watering early in the morning is much better than a smaller watering every day or two.

During drought times, don’t over fertilize. Grasses really only need feeding at the start of growing seasons, normally in the spring and fall. Outside those periods, keep fertilizer down to a bare minimum, if at all. Don’t kill your lawn by giving it too much love. Learn about your grass types and treat them based on that knowledge. All grasses are not the same, they are very different with different requirements – a little like us. Lawn care – it starts with lawn knowledge.