Professional landscaping services can provide trees, shrubs, and other plants that are used to shade air conditioning units and reduce energy costs, but did you know that keeping your lawn healthy can also reduce costs while keeping your backyard looking beautiful?
A great landscape design with a well maintained lawn can be a major selling point for your home. No home buyer wants to see bare patches, yellowed grass, or thrush anywhere. To prevent your lawn from looking drab, hire a landscaping company and have them perform a lawn analysis.
A lawn analysis will tell you the exact pH of your soil (basic, acidic, neutral) as well as the type of soil your yard consists of (clay, sand-based, etc.). Landscape services include a lawn analysis to make sure that they are installing the proper shrubs, flowers, and trees that will survive and thrive in your yard.
Landscaping can often improve the value of your home by making the outdoor view more attractive, so here are a few ways to make your lawn luscious and green.
- Mow Frequency: Make sure to cut your lawn often and use sharp blades so as not to uproot or pull on the grass roots. Think of cutting hair with dull scissors: it will fray the ends of the hair.
- Not Too Short: You don’t want your lawn looking like a golf course. If the grass is too short, then there will be no way for the grass to prevent weeds from growing. Longer grass blocks sunlight, preventing weed growth.
- Wet Lawn: You may think the best time to cut your lawn is after a good rainfall. Not so fast. Mowing when wet will compact the soil, squeezing out necessary air pockets for the roots, causing the grass to die.
- Clippings: After you’ve mowed your (non-wet) lawn, leave the clippings in the lawn; this will help fertilize the soil as they decompose. The clippings are also mostly water, so they will keep your grass hydrated.
- Watering: If you’re going to water your grass at all, do so thoroughly but infrequently. Watering your grass daily leads to shallow roots, meaning less likely to survive a drought. Watering frequently also wastes money!
- Night Watering: Don’t do it. Too much moisture on a lawn is a leading cause of plant diseases (which is then costly to get rid of). Instead, mow your lawn in the early morning.
- Fertilizer: Save yourself some cash and cut back on the chemicals. Too much fertilizer and you’ll end up with thatch. It also doesn’t do much good for the surrounding environment or your wallet.
- Mixing Chemicals: After your lawn analysis, you will know exactly what kind of fertilizer to purchase for your lawn. Don’t mix fertilizers, this could give your lawn an uneven-looking appearance.
You can easily cut back on costs by calling up the right landscaping company and having a lawn analysis done. Following these steps will ensure a healthy, green lawn. More info like this.