With the constant buzz of the mower in the air, the green on our boots, and the smell of gas and grass, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that your lawn needs more than a mow to stay healthy! With the growing season upon, mowing is ubiquitous and, of course, necessary. But beyond maintenance, Spring is a time for more. So it's time to sit down with the beavers and talk about lawn care. Your Indiana lawn is going through some changes right now! We're going to teach you how to care for it properly.

Maintenance is Necessary But Not Enough

Sunrise on a green lawn with a walking path and shrubs on the left in Bristol We understand that mowing takes up a lot of lawn care space. But it's only the first step in maintenance. For a beautifully maintained lawn, you must also edge it to create borders, trim it to handle the detail work, and blow out the excess grass clippings. All of that is part of your weekly or biweekly maintenance. It keeps your lawn looking trimmed. But what about its health? Cutting is a factor in lawn health as it stimulates growth and prevents smothers, but depending on your lawn, your soil, and the time of year, your grass has many other needs too.

Different Seasons

You'll be unsurprised to hear that your lawn has different needs each season. After all, you don't mow in the winter! Instead, Spring and Fall are two of the most active times for lawn care.

Autumn

In the Autumn, we're tasked with preparing our lawns for winter. That means removing debris (especially all that fall foliage) and cutting up until the end of the season. It also means leaving enough height to protect the grasses' roots from freezing. Another one of the most important tasks we perform every Fall is aeration. First, we aerate the soil to help to fluff up the dirt from all the fun you had playing on it during the summer; then we overseed the lawn so that it has an extra season to establish itself before the hot summer!

Spring

This section will be a brief overview since we'll be going into more detail below, and it's Spring now. For the Autumn, we clean up the landscape in Spring, add any necessary grass treatments such as fertilizer, and install sod where required.

Seasonal Cleanup

While Fall Cleanup gets most of the press, Spring Cleanup is just as integral to your lawn's health. The winter can do a number on your plants, especially if you didn't do Fall Cleanup. We'll take the time in the Spring to remove the dead plants that the winter killed and look for any bare spots in your lawn or places where ice mold formed. Catching it early is ideal!

Re-sodding

There's no need to fear if you lose some grass over the winter. While you may not want to take the time to wait for new grass to grow, installing sod is a good option for replacing a large section of lost grass. We prepare the ground for your sod, ensuring the soil is rich with nutrients and damp so the roots will immediately get water. Then we neatly place the sod down in strips and water it again. Afterward, stay off the new sod! We'll explain how often to water and any other necessary care. Gloved hands holding a green spreader applying fertilizer to a lawn in Bristol

Lawn Care Treatments

Finally, your lawn needs a couple of treatments to stay healthy. Their jobs are to keep it fed and to keep other plants from honing in on your grass's territory! Fertilizer is the way we give your lawn the nutrients it needs. However, because your grass comes back year after year and continuously pulls up the same nutrients from the soil, eventually, those nutrients will be depleted, leading to a less healthy lawn. So we amend the soil with fertilizer to prevent nutrient deficiencies in your grass. We also use weed treatments so that your lawns stay grass! But, unfortunately, weeds like many of the same things your grass does, so we have to add herbicides they don't like. While you can buy weed killer at the store, it's best to allow the pros t handle it. Our products are better, and we know the correct amount to use to be effective without overdoing it.

Show Your Lawn You Care

Lawn care is your way to show your lawn that you care, and your lawn will show its appreciation for that care by growing greener, thicker, and more robust. Not sure what care your property needs right now? Just ask the pros at BLB, and we'll make it dam fine indeed!