Sowing a new lawn
Early autumn is the ideal time to sow a new lawn while the soil is still warm but a bit damp. You can buy seed mixes which are tailored to suit different types of garden. There are ones for drought, shade or any kind of lawn. I use them all the time doing lawn and yard maintenance and can thoroughly recommend them!
Prepare the soil by removing stones and weeds and roughly leveling it. Clean it up the best you can then rake it. Firm the soil up by walking over it, then rake it again. A couple of days before you want to seed add a granular fertilizer to give your lawn a good start.
Mark your area out in to meter squares using canes and string. Then shake the seed box to mix it all up. Weight out your seed mix so you have approximately 50g per square meter of ground. If the type of seed mix you have says something different then go with that.
Split your meters worth of seed in two and scatter half in one direction, then take the other half and scatter in the opposite direction. Then lightly rake the area over and water. This will give your lawn the most even finish.
It’s important not to let the area dry out until the grass is well established. Seeds are very susceptible to drought so keep an eye out for the weather. If you find birds eating your seeds then you can spread netting over the area to protect it. This will also stop any curious cats or other animals from walking all over your newly sprouted lawn.
Once the lawn is at least 2″ high you can begin mowing it.
Managing a lawn during scorching weather
Unfortunately when a drought hits watering your yard is quickly banned to save water. If grass doesn’t get at least an inch of water per week it begins to die back. My lawn and yard service can cure all these problems for you, but there are a few tricks to keep your grass looking as healthy as possible during these times.
Adding Microbial Soil Agents will help your lawn endure by providing fungal spores which modifies the soil to allow it to retain moisture. It also acts as an insulator like when you add hay to your vegetable garden.
Stopping the use of fertilizers during this time is also essential. We don’t want to encourage the grass to grow too much because growth requires water. Growing slower will also encourage hardier growth which will benefit the plant in the long run.
Keeping a rain barrel or water butt allows you to store water for a non rainy day. It’s quite easy to set one up so your gutters feed into it to give you the most water possible. You can then use it sparingly on your lawn at dusk.
As I said in a previous post, letting your grass grow that little bit longer will enable it to grow its roots. This will allow access to any water underground within reach of the root. Cutting the grass short with severely limit the roots reach.
These methods won’t work miracles, but in my experience they will help to keep your lawn looking beautiful whatever the weather.
So the site is up and ready for Spring
I got the site up and everything is pretty much ready to go for this spring. It’s pretty slow at the moment, not many yards need attention in the middle of Winter…I guess it’s technically just the start of Winter but whatever.
I’m thinking about expanding some of my services next year beyond trimming, mowing, and fertilizing. Tree trimming would be nice except I would probably need to get some kind of special insurance for that, I doubt my current insurance covers anything that extreame. Depending on how many leads this site generates for me I may get into that.