A beautiful lawn can make a huge difference to the overall appearance of your property as well as making your garden a more pleasant place to relax and unwind.
A front lawn is a particularly important feature in any home as it is the first thing that guests will see when they come up your drive. If it’s overgrown and full of weeds, then you’ll send the signal that you don’t care much about home maintenance and this can affect the interactions you have with guests (and it really doesn’t help if you’re trying to sell the place!). It can even upset the neighbors!
For the back garden meanwhile, a beautiful lawn will give you a sense of contentment and pride whenever you look out the window and will make you much more inclined to spend time outside whether you’re enjoying your morning coffee or playing with the kids.
So how do you go about keeping that lawn picture perfect?
How to Get Rid of Your Weeds
To get rid of weeds, the first thing you need to do is to head outside and pull them out by hand (or pay the neighbor’s kid to do it…). This will give you a blank slate from which to start from but make sure when you’re pulling out the weeds that you grab them close to the ground and apply an even and steady pressure. The objective is to make sure that you pull out the roots as well as the tops of the soil and you’ll know if you’ve accomplished this because you’ll dislodge a large clump of soil. Use gloves to avoid cutting your hands and to give yourself more traction and make sure you get every last weed you can find. You can use a dandelion tool to get rid of dandelions. You may need to reseed after this process.
Now your lawn should be weed-free but if you leave it at that then they’re just going to pop back up. To make sure this doesn’t happen, try taking a soil sample to your local nursery or sending some to a testing center. This way you can find out the pH levels as well as how much organic matter is present in the soil. Using this information, you can then use organic spreads to make sure the levels are perfect for growing grass and less perfect for weeds. Next, use some corn gluten meal (during spring and fall) which will act as a pre-emergent for weeds thanks to slow-release nitrogen.
A final tip is to have your lawn mower on a higher setting so that the grass is kept slightly longer. This might seem counter-intuitive, but it works because the tall grass will shade out the weeds – starving them of light and causing them to die.
More Tips for a Beautiful Garden
This will all help you to keep your lawn weed free. To make sure it stays beautifully green meanwhile, consider getting sprinklers which will water the grass regularly so that you don’t forget and thus keep it healthy.
When using weed killers and pesticides, try to opt for organic products. These are kinder to the environment but also to the health of your garden and the small ecosystem that lives there. You don’t want to kill off bugs like ladybirds which are good for your garden – in fact, you should be encouraging them.
Finally, think about the placement of any garden features or fences; if you’re blocking out too much light then this can cause your lawn to struggle as well.
Follow all these tips, be vigilant and tip your gardener well. The result will be a lawn that you are proud to call your own!
Author of this Article: Toby Feldman
