5 Top Tips to Prepare Your Lawn for Spring
Spring is just around the corner! Your lawn has been resting through the colder months, but soon it will start to slowly increase its growth.
Here are our five top tips for getting your lawn spring-ready.
1. Clean up and rake away debris.
Now is the time to clear away any leaves, branches, or other debris that may have accumulated on your lawn during winter. Just as you do when spring cleaning your home, you will want to move any objects that have been stationary for a while (trampolines, for example) and allow these areas of your lawn to breathe.
2. Get your mower ready.
Chances are that, like your lawn, your mower has been sitting dormant for a few months. Do yourself and your mower a favour and treat it to a little attention before you go pulling the starter cord so many times you both end up out of puff!
A bit of basic maintenance can go a long way here. Simply changing the fuel, oil, and spark plug annually can help keep your machine running smoothly for years. Sharpening the blades is another important part of mower maintenance. If you’re a dab hand with the grinder, a touch-up can do wonders; otherwise, you may need to get a new set of blades.
If you baulk at the thought of home mechanics, there are many mower shops around that will, for a small fee, get your mower tuned up and ready to go. Get in early in the season, though, before they get overrun with work.
3. Test your soil.
If you sometimes find that your lawn is not performing very well or not responding to fertiliser, it could be to do with the soil pH. Now is the time to test your pH levels, so you can take action during spring to correct any imbalance.
4. Check for compaction.
To see whether compaction is a problem in your soil, grab a long screwdriver and plunge it into the ground in a few places to see how far it penetrates (minding any irrigation or electrical cabling!). You should be able to easily push it in 100–150 mm (4–6 inches) without too much resistance. If you can’t, your lawn could do with some aeration.
Aeration is one of the best things you can do to promote a healthy spring lawn. Aeration helps increase the amount of air, water and nutrients getting to the soil, which strengthens grass roots and helps create a healthier lawn.
5.Plan your spring lawn care schedule.
Having tested your soil’s pH and assessed compaction, you can now consider what lawn care activities you will need to undertake during spring and create a plan of action.