Repairing a lawn may appear to be a difficult and challenging task though, in reality, it is quite simple. The best thing is to keep your lawn maintained well by frequently fertilizing and dressing the lawn with the organic material once each year. Properly mowing and aerating lawn would minimize most of the common problems found with lawns. However, if you have a small bare patch with weeds or no grass or any other issue, you may easily repair and redevelop those areas. Addressing these problems quickly would prevent from damage to spread in other areas and will give you a prompt relieve from these problems.
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The process of repairing lawn
- First, you need to realize what is the cause of the problem and why do you need to have your lawn repaired? Some common issues can be a chronic disease, a dangerous damaging insect, and spill of a fertilizer, overgrowth and much more. You can correct these things by repairing your lawn with few efforts.
- For the patches that you need to repair, you may overseed those areas with new seeds of grass. In northern areas, you may do this in cool season so that grassroots get their time to be strong before summer arrives. In southern areas, lawns must be repaired in the spring season so that grass gets warm weather for growth.
Things that you would need for repair
- Lawnmower
- Grass seeds
- Rake
- Seed spreader
- Water
Important steps for repair
- Your lawn may need a completely new start: If for instance, you feel that more than half of the lawn needs repair, then you should give it a fresh start. Spray herbicide that includes glyphosate. It would kill veggies but would give you a good start for redevelopment at a fast pace.
- The lawn should be mowed low: After some weeks have passed to applying herbicide, you should start to use a lawn mower and mow the turf low. Cutting the area low will give you short dead plants and will prevent from erosion. It would prevent dead ones from capturing over new ones.
- Rake: Now you need to have a power rake and the rakes are also quite easy to handle similar to the use of a lawnmower. You just need to know how to adjust the blades and you can rake off the ground leaving only a base layer. All the debris and compost will be rake off and you will see some bare soil and dead stems only. Now you are all set to spread thin compost layer and rake it evenly over the soil.
- Spread seeds in the lawn: After layering the soil, now you can use the seeds and plant enough to have a healthy lawn. Check for instructions on the package about how much to use. You should not have bare spots so spread seeds evenly.
- Prevent your lawn from new weeds (optional): Though this is a quite easy step it is optional and if you put in a little effort, it is going to make your job easier and will protect from crabgrass seeds sprouting. For this, you can apply a pre-emergence herbicide. For repair or renovation that needs to be done during the fall season, you can avoid this step because crabgrass won’t be a problem during that season. It only troubles during spring.
- Water the repaired lawn really well: When you are done with planting, you must water the lawn well in order to keep it moist. You must make sure that the soil should not go dry for the first week. However, when the grass is growing and up, you would need to keep it moderate that is not too dry and not too soggy but appropriately moist. You must water the lawn so that moisture can be applied evenly throughout the coverage of lawn in order to keep seeds from washing away and giving you some bare areas in the lawn. Watering requirements differ in cool and dry seasons so you must take care of that too.
Feed and mow your repaired lawn well
Soon grass will begin to shoot and when the shoot is around an inch tall, you should begin to apply a fertilizer that would boost growth. It is important that you must wait until there is growth. If you apply fertilizer too early, it may burn your roots.
First mowing should be started when the grass reaches a height of around 3 inches. Make sure you use a reasonably good lawn mower for mowing perfectly. Mowing will discourage weeds and will again encourage growth. Also, keep it certain that blade of your mower is sharp for the first mow as a dull blade may rip out seeds from the ground with newly established lawn. You can mow according to the height you wish to have for your lawn but it is recommended that you do not cut more than 1/3rd of a leaf length for good health of your lawn.
Conclusion
These few basic repair tips can do miracles to your lawn and can make your property impressively appealing. The repairs would take a short amount of time but these efforts will result in a significant change. Little patience, physical labor, time and care can make a great headway and can save your lawn from overgrowth, bare patches, weeds, and other similar issues.
