Residential Landscape Architect for lawn information
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Does your lawn look terrible? It doesn’t have to look that way. You can have the best yard in your neighborhood without obsessing over it. Still, you will have to do some vigorous work initially to get the thing into shape.
There could be several reasons your lawn needs to look lusher and greener. We will provide solid lawn care practices that will address the health of the turf. A landscape that is healthy and thriving at a natural rate is resistant to many pests and diseases.
I can provide a client with the best landscape design, but it means nothing if the proper maintenance is provided. Having a great-looking, healthy lawn is a multi-faceted approach. It’s a process that takes time to do it properly. You can do things to have a fast green-up, but you’ll also have an annoying and unhealthy flush of growth. It takes two years of commitment to have an incredible lawn. But you will see improvement gradually over time if you follow the correct lawn renovation steps.
Let’s make an Assessment
Start over if your lawn is close to 50% weeds. You can hire someone or rent some equipment to install a new yard. At this time, you should also assess if you need a residential landscape architect to provide you with a professional landscape design. You can use it for site plan approval, as well.
Best Method to Deal with Existing Lawn
It starts with deciding to kill off the lawn or remove it. We’ll look at killing it in place first. There are four ways that I know how to kill off a lawn that I have observed.
OPTION 1
One is to rototill the lawn without any treatment. This is hard work because it would take several passes with a tiller to break up the soil. Depending on your soil type, there may be other options. For example, a typical hand-operated tiller will scrape and skip across the surface if you have ‘hard pan’ clay soil.
If you have sandy soil, rototilling first can be effective. You can make enough passes to break up the dirt clods. Then, you can rake out the grass material. You may have to rake the ground a few times. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you don’t want to leave any large clumps of roots.
OPTION 2
The second method is to kill the lawn with a chemical like ‘Roundup.’ This can be controversial because there have been cases in the past of people having health issues from handling it. If you’re ok with using it, follow the instructions, apply it to the lawn, and wait as instructed. After everything is dead, rototill until the soil is workable and rake out dead grass.
OPTION 3
Thirdly, you can take large sheets of cardboard. Lay them out flat, one layer thick overlapping approximately 6″, and wet it down. After the cardboard has been laid out, spread 3″ of compost over the top. Then, let it sit for a couple of months.
After the existing lawn, cardboard, and compost layer has had time to break down, the soil should be much more improved, and the lawn will be smothered dead. Weather, soil-building insects, and microorganisms in the soil feed on organic material layers, leaving rich soil behind. Rototill and rake out any clumps of material that may not have decomposed. This is my favorite method, but it’s more laborious and takes more time. It’s best for small yards.
OPTION 4
Lastly, you can burn the lawn to kill it. I have yet to see many companies offering this service for obvious reasons. I don’t recommend this method of killing off a lawn. Still, it could be used under the right conditions with safety considerations on a large, open lawn away from homes.
THE NUCLEAR OPTION
You can also avoid killing off the lawn by removing it, but this is hard work and produces a large amount of heavy debris. The problem is that you’re not only removing the grass and weeds, but you’re also removing some topsoil. It might only be an inch or two of soil, but over a large area, it adds up and is heavy to handle.
You could also remove the topsoil that you must replace. If you decide to remove the lawn and it’s a large area, I suggest you rent a sod cutter. Sod cutters are heavy and awkward, but once you get the correct depth to slice horizontally, it can save you hours of the back-breaking work of doing it by hand.
Suppose you have an area where you can stockpile bulk material. In that case, the sod you’ve generated can be mixed with yard waste like leaves, branches, wood chips, and vegetable waste and turn it into compost. Generally, it takes six months to produce a finished compost if it’s turned a few times. After that, the compost can be used as a soil amendment to build healthy soil for your trees, ornamental plantings, and lawns. That’s the best way to renovate lawns.
Soil Preparation: For the Health of Your Soil
Your lawn will be as healthy as the soil it is growing in. You want to add materials to provide an environment where microorganisms, like beneficial bacteria and fungi, can thrive. These microorganisms help the lawn take in the nutrients that we offer and the ones in the soil.
Chemical fertilizers often deplete, compact, and poison the soil around homes. Untreated chemical fertilizers feed plants in a fast-release, short-term way that causes an unnatural flush of growth. They also leave behind toxic salts which build up in the soil over time. In extreme cases, the salts can leave the earth incapable of growing anything.
Suppose your home was built in mass by a developer. It was built on land where the topsoil was stripped and sold off in the local bulk topsoil market. An environmentally oriented developer will do minimal earth moving and stockpile topsoil to be reused in the community. Then there’s no need to renovate lawns for entire neighborhoods.
Typically, the topsoil is sold off, the homes are built, and then trees, shrubs, and lawns are planted into subsoil compacted by construction equipment. This leads to future landscapes that will only thrive if the soil has a lot of life. This is because the life was removed with the topsoil.
The best way to bring life back into the soil is to add organic material and trace minerals and microorganisms. My favorite materials are yard/garden waste compost, aged chicken manure, crushed dolomitic limestone, and live worm castings. In addition, healthy topsoil strengthens landscape plants and lawns against pests and diseases.
The worm castings are the poop from composting worms. They are a key lawn renovation step for long-term success. You want your casting locally produced and stored correctly to keep the life in the batch. You don’t want the industrial stuff stored in unbreathable plastic bags for months. The best source is to produce your worm castings with a worm farm. Recycling cardboard boxes, leaves, and vegetable waste is a great way. To avoid starting a worm farm, shop locally to find a good source.
Spread an inch or two of compost and one inch of aged chicken manure. Then scatter a thin dusting of the worm castings and crushed limestone, till the materials into the existing soil to a 6″ -8″ depth with three for four passes. You don’t want to over till, but you want to break up dirt clods, so they are no larger than ¼”. You’re trying to create a seedbed so the soil will have good contact with the prepared ground.
Proper Grading of the Land is Critical
When landscape and construction professionals refer to “grade” or “grading,” we’re talking about leveling, elevation, slope, and the surface drainage of the land. After you’ve added organic material and tilled the soil, you’ve fluffed up everything and changed the existing grade.
The grade needs to settle and be recontoured properly to flow away from built structures and maintain the site’s overall drainage. Make a mistake at this stage; at best, you’ll have some standing water; in the worst case, you could flood your or your neighbor’s house. This is a critical part of the process where you may need a residential landscape architect.
Time to Seed the Lawn
After a yard has been graded, I prefer to let it sit for a couple of days to settle, but if you’ve got much rain in the forecast, you may have to seed immediately.
WHAT LAWN SEED TO BUY?
I suggest going to an established local mom-and-pop nursery/garden center and asking them for the right seed mix for the conditions you want to plant in. For example, they’ll need to know if you’re planting in clay versus sandy soils in sunny or shady conditions. Will it have high or moderate foot traffic? They can recommend a seed mix that’s been tried and true for your local area.
IT’S TIME TO SEED
First, lightly rake to break up the crust that may have formed on the soil. Use a rotary-type seeder to avoid patterns of seeding. Then, apply the seed at a rate recommended by the seed manufacturer. Do not apply extra because too much grass seed can cause excessive competition for germination.
Take a rake or two and back-drag lightly to mix the seed with the soil. Then rent or buy a yard roller. The kind you can fill with water. Roll the entire yard to increase the seed/soil contact.
With the lawn and seed bed prepared, it’s time to topdress or mulch it with something to hold moisture and protect while the seed is germinating. For large areas, straw is ideal. Make sure it’s straw, not hay. Hay can have live seeds and salts in it. Rent a straw blower; it shreds the straw so it lays flat and doesn’t catch as much wind. Cover the area with a thin layer.
For small lawn areas, use peat moss. Sprinkle a thin topdressing over the soil.
Begin Watering
As soon as the seed and mulch go down, begin watering immediately. Your goal is to keep the seed moist without puddling or runoff. You may have to water twice a day or more in hot weather. Therefore, early October is my favorite time to seed lawns in my area. Usually, you can get away with watering once per day. The cooler temperatures are ideal for germination and maintaining moisture.
Maintenance is Key
GET ON A FERTILIZATION PROGRAM
Once the lawn has reached 4″ in height, it’s time for its first mowing and fertilization. Take about an inch off and fertilize with Milorganite or something similar you can acquire locally. You want something organic, slow-release, and provides the vital nutrients and trace minerals for plant health. Apply as directed in the fall and spring. That’s it!
WATERING TO ESTABLISH THE BEST LAWN
After giving your lawn its first mowing, you want to reduce the watering to once per week slowly. The idea is to water deeply. You want the roots of the grass plants to reach down for the water. Thus being able to draw moisture and native minerals from deeper into the soil during droughty periods, as well as the ability to endure freezing temperatures.
You want to avoid overwatering your lawn because you can drown it. It will turn yellow, and it will be squishy. This is also a perfect environment for fungal diseases to take over. Manage your waterings thoughtfully.
MOW REGULARLY
Mow weekly during the growing season. You don’t want it to grow much taller than 4″ before you mow it. Keep it at the height recommended by the seed supplier. Usually, a little longer is better.
Keep your mower blades clean and sharp. That will have your lawn looking gorgeous and healthy.
DETHATCHING
If your lawn is around 70% desirable turf seed, this is where you can start renovating your way to the ultimate lawn. That’s right, skip the lawn removal, killing, and rototilling.
If you have thatch, build up dethatch. If you don’t have any, don’t bother. Thatch is the buildup of dead grass stems and leaves that form a dense mat that can prevent air and nutrients from making it to the root of individual turf grass plants.
You can tell if you have excessive thatch buildup by vigorously taking a steel rake and raking a 2′ by 2′ area. You’ll be left with a small pile of dead material if there’s a problem.
You can dethatch a small area by raking it out by hand and do large areas with a power dethatcher. If you’re using a power dethatcher, you must plan for all the debris you will produce. The perfect place is the compost pile.
AERATING SHOULD BE PART OF YOUR FALL ROUTINE
Core aeration is when small plugs of earth are plucked from the ground. As a result, water, air, and nutrients flow efficiently into the soil. I recommend core aerating after the last mowing in the fall so you can leave the plugs to dissolve over winter.
Topdressing with an inch of screened compost and a dose of Milorganite following core aeration is the ultimate way to put a lawn to bed for the winter. Then, in the spring, your lawn will explode.
Conclusion
Once you have a young, established lawn, complete a soil test. You want a soil test done for nutrients to grow ornamental plants. I like to have mine done at a state university with an agricultural and horticultural program. They’ll tell you what to put on your yard if it’s nutrient- or mineral-wise deficient.
You’ve begun the process of maintaining an organic lawn. Digging out or pulling a few weeds during the growing season takes little. Fertilize in the spring and fall, mow weekly, and aerate in the fall, and you’ll have the prettiest lawn in the neighborhood. Ask a residential landscape architect how they renovate lawns for a more scientific approach when in doubt.
While you’re at it, here’s a great article on Landscape Renovation.