The Importance of Different Lawn Care Services in Alexandria, VA
As the seasons get warmer, we spend more and more time outdoors on our properties’ lawns. We invite visitors over outside, we let pets run around, and we find time to sit out and enjoy the sunshine. However, it’s easiest to be around a lawn that is healthy and inviting, and sometimes you may find your lawn is lacking. We love lawns for our houses because they are wonderful spaces to hang out for everyone. However, if you find yourself avoiding your lawn, it may be helpful to question why and see if there is a solution to keep you from avoiding a wonderful place to relax.
Does this sound familiar? You’ve mowed the lawn recently, the weather’s been cooperating, and your yard should have gotten some water. Do you find it still looks discolored, bare, or in some way unappealing? There are a lot of issues that may be at play, but a lot of these problems have a simple solution: investing in lawn care.
Does My Lawn Need Help?
Lawn care goes beyond just mowing your lawn to improve the health of your grass. While you may think your lawn can take care of itself, weather conditions and the might of the outdoors can hamper its health and appearance. Even just normal use of your lawn can take a toll on its health! You may find yourself with yellowing or browning grass, or bare patches of dirt in your lawn. Your grass could appear thinning, patchy, and sharp. Your lawn could even be overrun with weeds and pests that damage the root systems and the grass blades. If you find yourself nodding along here, familiar with these issues, investing in lawn care might be beneficial for your lawn and for you.
Just like you would care for flowers or plants in a garden, it’s important to care for the grass on your lawn. By just mowing it and ignoring possible issues like water access, pests, or lack of nutrients, you end up hurting your lawn and costing yourself property value and space in the long run. If you find yourself struggling with your lawn, a complete lawn care plan is a great place to start!
Good Methods of Lawn Care
Different problems with your lawn may require different solutions. From fertilization to aeration to seeding, searching for solutions can often leave you wondering what would actually aid your lawn. Depending on the problem your lawn faces, these methods of lawn care can drastically improve the health and look of your yard!
Lawn Fertilization
Is your grass thin and yellowing? It’s possible your grass isn’t receiving enough nutrients naturally through the soil. This is a problem that can accumulate over time, but the application of fertilizer can return those nutrients to your lawn. The main three nutrients in fertilizers are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These are important for the health of your lawn, as phosphorus helps grass to spread and grow, potassium keeps grass strong against pests and heat, and nitrogen helps your grass keep its green coloring. By adding these nutrients to the soil, you can help your grass become thick and green again over time.
Lawn Aeration
Over time, with the pressure of running, weather, water runoff, and mowing across your lawn, the soil of your yard can compact together. This clumping can compact soil, blocking off water (and nutrients) from the roots of your grass, killing them off over time. Aeration is the loosening of soil so that roots can grow deeper and have better access to water and nutrients. This can be done through removing plugs of soil, poking holes into the soil, or with liquid aerator. Regardless of the method, this results in a healthier lawn with fuller and richer grass.
It’s possible to find aeration solutions at local lawn equipment stores. While the process isn’t difficult, obstacles like tree roots, sprinklers, and drains can make aerating your lawn difficult. Investing in a professional company for aeration is usually the most effective treatment for your lawn aeration.
Weed Control
When bare patches form, weeds are quick to infiltrate your lawn. However, their roots will choke out the remaining grass, spiraling into a huge problem. Some weeds that are common in the area, like crabgrass and chickweed, crowd out the grass around your lawn. Even weeds like dandelions or violets, while they may look nice, have root systems long enough to choke out your lawn. Dandelion roots can grow up to 18 inches long!
While these kinds of broadleaf weeds are hard to remove due to their long root systems, they are possible to remove. Weeds can survive on very little water and space and spread seeds quickly, making them hard to take care of once they begin to spread. However, herbicide options can kill them off for good while keeping your grass healthy.
Overseeding
If you find your lawn is already rife with bare patches, you may find it’s hard for the grass to grow back naturally, leaving ugly patches while you wait. Seeding application will spread grass seeds, helping to speed up the natural process and resulting in thicker and healthier grass than before. This can be done along with aeration, since looser soil allows the seeds to settle easily and initially absorb more water.
It’s important to regularly water your grass and seeds when overseeding to make sure the seeds don’t just die off. New grass seedlings aren’t as resistant as your lawn’s grass, and a lack of consistent water could stunt or stop their growth.
Other Ways to Improve Your Lawn
Perhaps you’ve already invested in these solutions, and yet you still find your lawn lacking in appearance or difficult to be around. Don’t worry! There may be other ways to improve your lean to make it easier to be around!
Landscaping Benefits
Do you find that your front yard is just one long strip of grass? This can often look bare or uninviting. Flowers, bushes, hedges, and trees can go a long way to making a more inviting lawn. By working with a landscaper to design and maintain some beds or hedges, you can dramatically increase the appeal of your lawn!
From our experience with landscaping, it all starts out with a consultation and a design (we offer both for free). There are a lot of materials you could utilize, such as mulch or sod. You may also want to remove trees, or possibly even install lighting to spruce up your lawn. By talking with a landscaper, you’ll find there are endless possibilities to brighten the appearance of your lawn, and they are often with it.
Pest Control
While bugs are a natural part of the outdoors, they can take advantage of your lawn as a space free to predators to thrive. However, this can hurt your lawn and even damage your property. Grubs that burrow into your soil can eat the roots of your grass and plants, hurting or killing them off over time. In the case of bugs that make homes in your grass and lawns like ticks, they can even be dangerous to your health. This article details some of the dangers of ticks. Nobody likes the idea of bugs in their lawn, but prevention of pests like grubs is important for the health of your lawn.
Don’t Forget Proper Lawn Mowing!
Lawn mowing can be a hassle to plan around – it’s hard to cut on a schedule, it’s hard to cut to the right length, and often the weather doesn’t cooperate. That’s all assuming your lawn is small enough to mow across in a short amount of time! If you find mowing your lawn a chore, it’s possible to try hiring your mowing services out to a professional. You may find investing in a lawn mowing service creates more peace of mind. Make sure to research your local options and that the company to try is reputable.
Help your Lawn Around Alexandria, VA
Hopefully, if your yard is facing health problems, these lawn care solutions can help your lawn become more enjoyable. As the warmer months approach us, you deserve to have a place to enjoy the outdoors! When your lawn isn’t cutting it, it’s possible investing in lawn care or other features might help you forge that dream yard to enjoy.
If you find yourself wanting help with these features in the Alexandria area, or want to perform something more technical like aeration or landscape design, see if Blue Ridge Lawn & Landscape is a good fit for you! We offer all the listed services and more in order to help your lawn look its best. If you’re interested in learning more about our services or wish to have a free consultation, contact us today!