Lawn

Lawn Care
To get a great lawn, first you should fall in love with it.  People that like the outdoors and their yard naturally have nice lawns.  If you are just too busy or have different priorities, you should hire a fertilization service and a gardener (ideally) or just someone to mow the lawn. 

Fertilization
Lawns require five fertilizations to look their best.  You start in the early spring and fertilize approximately every two months.  You should have one applications near every spring, summer, and fall holiday.  The fertilization is uniquely blended for your lawn needs at each interval.  For example, early spring fertilization puts out pre emergent to keep weed grasses from growing and the middle of the summer applications have grub control and may help with heat conditions.  If you do it yourself, go to Scotts and sign up for an email to remind you when and what application to apply.  If you hire someone, don’t use Chemlawn unless you can handle very aggressive sales techniques. 

Aeration
The fertilizer needs to get to the root of the plants.  Aeration should be done in the fall and in the spring.  It makes it easier for the nutrients and oxygen to get to the plant roots.  It also has the benefit of reducing thatch and thatch is where all the lawn diseases start.  Thatch is caused by excessive buildup of old lawn root systems.  You lawn gets a completely new root system every year.  The other added benefit is that aeration helps keep your lawn smooth.  Earthworms make little hills in the lawn and aeration helps poke them back down

Cutting the Lawn
There are two major sins committed by homeowners.  First of all, most of them bag the clippings.  The clippings are great and healthy for the lawn.  They disintegrate in a few days and they provide nutrients and help hold in moisture.  Many people complain they don’t want grass tracked into the house.  However, this is in most cases only a problem when people let the lawn to tall to cut properly. 

The second major sin committed by homeowners is that they cut the grass too short.  You make like the look of a short lawn, or simply be trying to mow it less.  However, it’s hard on the grass and can help it get scalped, burned, and diseased.  The best defense against any type of grass problems is to have healthy grass. Healthy grass is tall grass.  For your lawnmower, you should put it on the highest setting or maybe one notch down; anything lower than that will mutilate some of your lawn.

How often should you cut your lawn?  Once a week is ideal.  Many people cut their lawn every two weeks and some cut it every 5 days.  If you wait more than two weeks to cut your lawn, you are considered a slacker by your neighbors.

Edging and Trimming the Lawn
When I was a kid most people didn’t trim the lawn.  Nowadays people are edging, trimming, and cutting it in patterns for the ultimate look. 

Stick edgers are the easiest and best tool for edging.  If you do it weekly, it will only take a few minutes. 

When trimming your lawn, don’t rev up the engine all the way.  The power you have is for the few times when you might cut down swaths of huge weeds.  Keep the power to a minimum and it will save your lawn from getting damaged.

Lawn Equipment 
Professionals prefer Honda Commercial Lawnmowers and Stihl or Echo edgers and trimmers.  Echo isn’t carried by lawn mowing shops much anymore because they now cater to big box stores like Home Depot.  If you want any type of service, you will need to purchase Stihl.