I'm not a lawn expert, but here is what works well for me. (I've learned
this from reading lots of books on the subject. (By lots I mean I looked
at the cover of more than one book!)) 8>)
First, NEVER, EVER water a lawn!!! Huh? you may ask. Well it's simple.
A lawn that is watered, will encourage it's roots to stay near the surface.
Once you have a drought and can't water, the grass will die.
If you never water it, the root go deep (which helps the surface dirt as
well.) The grass will be way more drought resistant. The only time you
should use a sprinkler, is when planting new grass. (Which, by the way,
always over seed a new lawn.)
Never do anything to a lawn before 5pm. Again, I hear you saying, "Huh?"
The daytime is the most stressful time for a lawn. The cooler evening
hours are a much better time for the grass to be cut, etc. If you must
water a lawn, (GASP!) water it in the early morning hours. This will give
it time to soak in before the sun makes little maganfingy glasses out of
the water droplets. But it also doesn't let the water stay wet all night
long and promote fungi.
Now, here is where this ties into the question (I knew I had a point
somewhere!) 8>)
Don't pick up grass clippings. There's gold in them there clippings. Well
not 'gold', but nutrients that your lawn needs. By not picking up
clippings, you may never have to fertilize.
Which is another "never." Unless your lawn has some sort of issue, you
should never spray, fertilize, lime, etc it. If the grass that there can't
live in the soil, find the variety that can. All that chemicals do is
create a lawn that becomes dependant on them.
Your lawn grass should be AT LEAST 3" tall. Short grass can not defend
itself for weeds and grubs. Tall grass will choke out competing plants.
Gee, so far, everything I said makes lawn care so much more "hands off."
It seems that if you do nothing, you will have a great lawn! Almost.
There is one drawback and that is that you should never cut your grass more
than an 1" at a time. (really more than 0.5") Again, it's very stressful
to the lawn. Plus you need to have small clippings if the lawn is to
reabsorb them. So all the time you save everywhere else is consumed in
more frequent cuttings.
It goes without saying that you need SHARP blades. You want to 'cut' the
grass and not 'rip' the grass. This is very similar to the blades on the
chainsaw. If they aren't sharp, your not cutting wood.
I follow this pretty closely. I live in a terrible area for lawns. The
soil is crap and rocky and it's either to wet or dry and hard as a rock.
While I don't have a picture perfect yard, I don't kill myself on it, and
it stays green in the worst of the drought.
Note, it will take a few seasons for the lawn to recover from all the
"help" you have been giving it! Good luck.
Inch
http://megageek.com
"Did you exchange, a walk-on part in the war,
for a lead role in a cage?" R Waters.
|