Want to understand what it means to engage in lawn renovation? Let’s explore the process and all the necessary steps to get your lawn looking better than ever.
Killing Your Existing Lawn
To renovate your lawn, you’ve got to tear it down and build it up again. Killing your lawn is a long process and requires you to use non-selective herbicides. Then, spray the chemicals and water your yard in-between sprays to push up anything that evaded the chemicals the first time around, such as weeds or grass. Once you’re done, it’s time to rake up all the dead yard debris.
Scalping The Lawn
With the first step complete and your grass brown, it’s time to mow low and get rid of the clippings.
Detaching The Lawn
For the dethatching step, you’ll want a dethatching rake. Again, if you’re dealing with a space larger than 10,000 square feet, you should get professionals in to do the job with proper equipment. Furthermore, you don’t have to do this, but you’ll be working for a while on this step otherwise.
Dethatching is just raking up dead debris such as dead grass until the soil is exposed as much as possible.
Core Aeration
Take a core aerator and remove plugs from your lawn to allow for airflow to the incoming root zones. You want to enable more fertilizers, nutrients, and water to sink deeper into the soil of your lawn. With aeration, you’re relieving compacted soils.
Leveling
Considering everything you’re doing to your lawn, it makes sense that you’d have to regrade the landscape or simply tend to some dips. Soil types can vary from property to property, and this needs to be considered when leveling your yard.
Spreading Grass Seeds
How many pounds of grass seeds per 1000 sq. ft. will depend on your chosen grass type. First, try and pick good seed blends. Then use a drop or rotary spreader and spread the grass seeds around your yard. Make sure you’ve got extra seeds on hand in case you need to put more seeds in bare or thinner areas.
Fertilization
With the seeds in the ground, the soil aerated, and everything leveled, it’s time to fertilize. Choose a starter fertilizer and ensure you’ve got one with phosphorous to help develop the roots.
Rake
When we say rake, we mean gently. This isn’t a process you should be doing without purpose. You want to lightly rake the seed into the soil to improve seed-to-soil contact. Don’t go deeper than ¼” below the surface.
Cover and Roll Grass Seeds
To have a thriving lawn, you need to grow the grass; water is essential. A great light covering is peat moss which holds 25 x its weight in water. Ensure it’s a light layer. Other options include weed-free stray or straw mulch.
Watering
As we said, water is essential, so water those seeds! However, don’t overdo it to avoid flooding or washing out the seeds. The soil should be consistently damp.
Conclusion
The process of lawn renovation is a complex process that has many intricacies. If you’re going at it as a DIY project, be careful not to do a step incorrectly. Adding too much or too little of something can be the difference between a great lawn and an average lawn.
