Four Season Lawn & Landscape Maintenance Tips
Healthy soil, grass types, fertilizer, good lawn maintenance practices, and an automatic watering system all play a role in a healthy lawn and landscape.
Popular Grass Types in New York State & How to Keep Them Healthy
If you’re looking to create a hearty and beautiful yard, here are three common grass types that New York homeowners use—and what you’ll need to do to keep them in good shape.
1. Tall Fescue
Tall fescue is a cool-season grass that grows abundantly in the fall and spring months, and is ideal for property owners who want to maintain a lush lawn when temperatures drop. This species is also perfect for the region’s hot summers, because it is highly resistant to drought.
Since tall fescue tends to grow in clumps, installing overseeding with other grasses can help promote more even turf. To ensure that tall fescue has deep roots to defend against drought, automatic watering systems should be set to provide one-inch of water all at once each week -which is much less than other grass types need.
2. Kentucky Bluegrass
Kentucky Bluegrass has dark green, V-shaped leaves, is vulnerable to excessive shade and drought, but does extremely well in the winter.
Kentucky Bluegrass is best planted in the fall and will continue to spur its own growth in the seasons that follow. Compared to other grass types, Kentucky Bluegrass will likely require more fertilizer depending on the soil condition. For watering, to ensure that its shallow roots get enough moisture, Kentucky Bluegrass requires about one inch of water each week during cooler months and two inches in the summer months.
3. Perennial Ryegrass
If you want to keep your grass green during the winter, you can use warm-season grasses for the summer, and plant perennial ryegrass in the fall. Perennial Ryegrass does well in cold weather, but will go dormant in the summer, especially during periods of drought unless you keep it well watered so that underlying soil remains moist at a depth of six-to-twelve inches.
How to Maintain Grass
Proper fertilization and mowing practices are essential to m establishing and maintaining a healthy, lush lawn.
1. Fertilize Properly
Follow the recommended fertilization schedule for your grass to ensure it has enough nutrients to stay active, green, and healthy in the summer. Cool-season varieties typically need to be fertilized in the spring and fall, and warm-season varieties require an additional one or two midsummer fertilizations. If your lawn has become dormant – which can happen during very hot summers, apply fertilizer only after new growth has been restored for a few weeks.
2. Cut Grass Carefully and to the Right Height
First, develop a crisscross mowing pattern that cuts the grass in a different direction every other week. Second, before mowing, make sure the mower blades are sharp to prevent unnecessary damage to the lawn. Third, raise the mower’s cutting height to three inches—a level that helps keep the soil shaded to prevent excessive evaporation. And fourth, if you are not using mulching blades, collect the grass cuttings to discourage mold growth so that your grass gets all of the sun and water it needs to grow lush and green.
3. Dethatch Occasionally
A hand-held dethatching rake or motorized dethatching machine can be used to remove excess organic matter (thatch) that has built up on top of the soil. Thatch build-up causes water to lay on top of the thatch layer or run off instead of soaking into the soil to reach the grass roots. It can also foster mold growth. Before dethatching, flag or mark your system’s sprinkler heads so that they are not damaged by the dethatching process.
Weeds & How to Manage Them
During the spring and summer, one of the most troublesome maintenance factors is keeping lawn weeds at bay. While installing an automatic watering system can help create a healthier lawn, it’s only one step in the process. Active weed management is also essential to a beautiful and healthy looking lawn and landscape.
– What is a weed?
“Weeds” include any type of plant that grows where it’s not wanted or intentionally planted. This doesn’t mean weeds are bad, but many types can be invasive and steal nutrients from your intentionally planted grass and flowers need to survive and thrive.
– Common types of weeds
Some of the most common lawn weeds include dandelions, crabgrass, and common ragweed. Although dandelions blossom into bright yellow flowers, the seedy white tufts that come after maturity spread in the wind like wildfire, quickly overtaking a lawn and planting beds and disrupting the health of your landscape.
Crabgrass is also very invasive, as the roots extend deeper into the ground. During the summer months, this weed can produce up to 150,000 seeds per plant. Ragweed is another common weed that produces thousands of seeds each season and triggers hay fever. Ragweed is difficult to control without using strong weed killing chemicals.
– How to manage weeds & prevent weed growth
The best way to manage lawn weeds is a proactive approach that will reduce your risk of invasive growth. This should include regularly fertilizing and pruning your lawn and addressing any signs of weed growth as soon as they’re seen.
Everything you do to create stronger roots for your grass, flowers, and shrubbery will help combat lawn weeds. This also includes making sure that your lawn gets plenty of water throughout the year. By installing an automatic watering system, you can create schedules to ensure your yard is well hydrated based on seasonal changes.
If you notice a few weeds, you can eliminate them by hand. However, lawn weeds like dandelions have deep roots and if not completely removed, they will come back. Therefore, make sure you remove these when they’re small and your soil is moist. If you’re unable to get the entire root, consider using weed control sparingly.
Proper lawn care is a year-round responsibility, but once winter is on the doorstep, it becomes more about protecting your grass so that it can thrive when warmth returns. Below-freezing temperatures and wintry conditions can damage plant life and wreak havoc on the lawn irrigation system, so it’s important to take steps to guard your property until spring. Here’s a closer look at what you can do.
How to Shield Your Lawn From Damage During the Winter
1. Rake leaves in the fall
While it’s best to rake the leaves before the first frost of the cold season, this happens early in autumn in northern climes. Leaves will continue to fall, so clear the yard of them periodically until the trees are bare.
Raking helps the sun reach as much of the grass as possible, which will reduce the number of brown patches you’ll have next year. Leaves left on the ground will become wet and form a barrier that deprives the lawn of oxygen.
2. Let it snow!
A lawn blanketed in snow isn’t just beautiful. It also provides the grass with insulation in a way that wet and frozen leaves can’t. Your grass will be able to store moisture and nutrients while being shielded from bitter winter winds.
The presence of snow provides another reason to rake up leaves and clear debris throughout the fall and early winter. Leaves trapped under snow may begin to mold, which can damage your grass and get into your lawn irrigation system.
3. Stay off the grass!
When the ground is frozen and hard, driving or walking repeatedly on the lawn can cause damage more easily. This can result in bare spots in the spring. For the best results, avoid parking vehicles of any kind on the lawn throughout the winter, and ask family members and visitors to use the sidewalk.
If you are located in Rochester, Monroe County or the Finger Lakes Region and are looking for lawn sprinkler system installation or an upgrade to an existing system, annual maintenance, or repair, reach out to Irrigation Tech in Pittsford, NY. Our team of irrigation experts has been serving Rochester, Monroe County, and other communities in the Finger Lakes Region for nearly 40 years. With 10 service trucks, you can trust our fully certified team for fast and efficient service – including backflow device installation and testing. Call 877-8-IRRIGATE to speak with a team member or visit irrigationtech.com to learn more.