How to get that perfect level cut for your lawn

You're envious of your neighbors lawn.  He has a perfectly level cut like this. And you want to know how to get it.

First, it starts with the quality of your turf.   You have to invest in a fertilization program for your lawn.  It will take several months of care and investment to get your lawn to full, thick, and healthy status.

Also if you're in cool season grass zone and have tall Fescue for instance, you'll need to aerate and overseed your turf every fall.   Without a thick healthy lawn you wont have anything to work with when it comes to mowing it beautifully.

Next, make sure your blades on your mower are sharp.  You will need to sharpen them every 15-20 mowings or at least twice per season.  I recommend sharpening them first thing in spring, and then again in mid-summer. During the summer months is when your lawn is most susceptible to damage from heat stress, so  its imperative to have sharp blades cutting the grass.

After you have a good sharp blade, scrape out the deck of your mower removing the build up that accumulates underneath.  You can use a regular painters spatula for this task.  Typically, you will need to clean out the deck of your mower every other cut.  This allows your mower to do its job better, and yields a better cleaner cut.  Put a plastic trash bag down and scrape it out over the bag, this makes for easy cleanup of the debris.

Now check over your lawn very closely looking for divets, pot holes, and imperfections in the grade.  This is crucial because if you have  uneven terrain your mower will scalp areas as you are cutting the lawn.  This is particularity the case if you have a riding lawn mower as they are not very forgiving and will case damage to the lawn as they run through a pot hole.

Following this advice you too can create a beautifully shorn lawn that looks like glass... like this..

These Three Winter Lawn Tips Will Take Your Lawn To The Next Level!

So the growing season is over, leaves are falling from the trees, and ole’ Jack Frost is nipping at your heels.

You have worked your butt off all summer and fall (or paid a professional a pretty penny) to get your lawn in top notch shape, now it’s the end of the season… now what?

So what are the best lawn care tips for winter preparation?

Fortunately, winter lawn preparation is fairly straightforward.

These 3 steps will help you have a great lawn come spring! What are they? Let’s take a look. Step 1: Winter Preparation Begins in Fall

Winter preparation starts in early fall with aeration and overseeding. 

Heres the deal, aeration and overseeding are crucial to ensuring a great looking lawn next spring. This needs to be completed 3-4 weeks before temps start falling below an average of 50 degrees during the day, and 30 degrees at night time.

Here’s the catch if you wait till too late in the fall or early winter, then you the window of opportunity has passed you buy, the seed will need 3-4 weeks of decently warm weather to germinate and grow before the coming winter.

This will allow the grass seed to establish itself before it gets too cold.

Missed Early Fall Prep? Don’t Worry

No Problem! If you missed the early fall preparations no need to worry.

If the ground isn't frozen, you can still aerate the lawn, and the seeding can wait until early spring.

Catch up with the seeding in late February or early March, when temps start creeping back up. But if you wait until too late in the spring, then the baby grass will get cooked by the impending summer heat. Timing is everything!

Regardless steps 2 and 3 are just as important.

Step 2: Remove Fall Leaves and Debris

Remove as many fall leaves as you can before winter begins.

Of course, the leaves don’t always come off of all the trees at once. But the more you can remove in the fall, the better your spring will be. Dry fall leaves are easier to remove than soggy leaves in spring.

Here’s the deal, whether you can remove all of the leaves in the fall or not, remove as many as you can! This is one lawn care step that you don’t want to skip out on!

Removing leaves may seem basic, but it is actually very important for several reasons:

Leaves are a breeding ground for bugs, especially gnats.If left in the lawn too long, leaves can choke out grass.When leaf matter is left in the lawn it increases the risk of fungi such as snow mold.Finally, leaf matter can house voles, mice and other rodents.

Best of all, removing the leaves in the fall will help you with Step 3.

Step 3: Winter Fertilizer

Now, the next step will be to apply a quality time released granular winter fertilizer.

A good winterizer fertilizer can be found at your local big box home supply stores, or you might want to buy local and support your local lawn and garden shop.

In my experience, a CO-OP can offer better advice and guidance on which fertilizers will work best in your climate can be found there.

When you apply the fertilizer you need to wait until the baby grass has matured and been mowed a couple times. If you apply the granular fertilizer too soon you can burn up the baby grass and, that’s not good!

You might be wondering, Should you sill fertilize if you did not seed in fall? Yes, you can still apply a winter fertilizer.

If you need a little help on deciding which lawn fertilizer you should use here is an article that will help “Best Granular Fertilizers on the Market”.

So What’s the Game Plan?

Heres the recap, first aerate and overseed in early to mid-fall. Once it germinates and is healthy, then apply the winter food to feed it all winter.

Once you have completed those 3 steps, it’s time to begin your spring game plan! Here are 10 Lawn Care Tips for Spring.

On the other hand, if you live in a climate with transitional weather further up north, then lawn care in Atlanta or Nashville takes on a very different shape. So, getting yourself a snow blower or finding someone to shovel you out would be highly recommended. You may want to check the web to help you decide which snow blower would fit your lawn.

These winter preparations will help your lawn be all that it can be the come springtime. These simple preparations will help your lawn to establish deep roots which will help your grass survive the winter. Additionally, these winter preparation steps will help to eliminate and prevent fungal infections and other diseases in your lawn.

How to edge your lawn like a pro

So you want make that edge on your lawn like the pro’s do?   Well… here is your how to guide  :-)

First off, you have to have the right tool for the job. The problem is many consumer edgers are difficult to use, make a lot of mess, and get bogged down easily.  I bet you know that pain.

You will need to buy a straight shaft weed-eater that is powerful enough to do the job similar to one similar to what the pro’s use.  Kawasaki has an entry level commercial grade model that can be purchased for around $275.

Next, you will need to remove the guard around the head.  While this is not by the safety book, it’s what the pro’s do.  This is what allows you to invert the weed-eater to cut in the edge at 90 degree angle, like you see here.

This is how to edge the lawn like the pros

So now that you have a professional weed-eater, with the guard removed, next you will need to practice.

Using 4-6” of string on each end , position the weed-eater at 90 degree angle and experiment with the throttle giving it enough power to cut back the overgrown grass.    At first you are going to be doing a sloppy job, but with practice you will cut a beautiful edge like you see in the picture above.

At first, do it while walking backwards, this will discharge the debris always from you.  As you get better, and have a maintained edge, you will be able to do forward and backwards.

When I was training new recruits at my landscaping company, it would take about a week for a new team member to master edging with a string trimmer.   So it will take you some practice, but hey, it’s better than paying someone to do it, and it will be faster and more beautiful than any other method.  

Be advised this method may or may not work in areas such as Florida that have sandy soils.  Many of our lawn care vendor partners in St. Petersburg, and Tampa Florida prefer to use a blade stick edger because the soil contains allot of sand.

Related articles How to weed eat like a pro

Need to burn off a few pounds? Do it with home maintenance

Top to Bottom Home Maintenance Weight-Loss Plan

If you are looking at improving your home, you can begin at the top and work your way down to the bottom. By doing so, you will not only improve your home, but you will begin to lose a lot of weight in the process.

Let’s begin with the roof. If you are doing roofing, you are going to burn 340 calories in the process every hour. That is over 1,500 calories just for six hours of work. Not too bad. Heading down, you can begin cleaning out the gutters. An easy task, but you are going to burn about 272 calories every hour by doing so. Now that you are done with the gutters, you can begin to hang storm windows. The storm windows will burn 272 calories every hour as well. Heading farther down, you can begin to work on the wiring and plumbing of the second and main floor. This will take you several hours, and that will burn 136 calories every hour. Now that you are done with what is in the walls, you can lay down carpet, or remove it. Doing that is going to burn 238 calories per hour. Heading farther down, maybe even out onto the deck, you are going to sand the floors. That is going to burn another 238 calories every hour. Lastly, you hit the dirt outside, and here if you are working on a garden, or digging holes for plants, you can burn 272 calories every hour. Other activities like raking leaves and mowing the lawn will burn 384 calories and 400 calories every hour. Throw in painting the outside of the house, and you have a further 272 calories burned every hour.

It doesn't take much to burn a lot of calories, but with some work around the house, you can burn plenty. 

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Attract Pollinators To Your Yard

Einstein once said that if bees disappeared, humanity would follow. Well, bees are disappearing but thankfully the rate of colony collapse has slowed. Nonetheless, you can do what you need to to help bees by creating a garden that attracts pollinators to your yard. Pollinators like honeybees and bumblebees are vitally important to our local eco-systems. In the United States alone, bees and their pollination is responsible for $14 billion annually and one third of the food supply of North America comes from plants that require insects to pollinate them.

First of all, don't use pesticides in your yard. This is one of the biggest reasons bees are disappearing. Second, start to plant plants that need to be pollinated. This will attract a population of bees to your yard to pollinate them, helping hives thrive and survive. Too often people choose to have the sterile lawn look, when you can have a look that is so much better with pollinating plants. Good flowers to plant are those that bloom for the entire season, not just for a couple of weeks. Plant nectar-rich flowers because they attract not only pollinators, but hummingbirds as well. Include larval host plants for butterflies, as this will help create a wonderful eco-system in your yard. Plant a diversity of species that bloom from spring to fall, don't just have one kind of plant in your yard.

Having some good pollinating plants in your yard will not only attract bees, it will help your yard look better. The yard will smell wonderful and you will have the nice hum of bees in your yard. Not wasps, just bees, and if you let them do their thing, they will leave you alone as well. You will also be doing your part to help the bee population.

One last thing, and it is important, you need to make sure you use local plants. If you use invasive species, they could actually be harmful to the local wildlife and insect populations. Find plants that the bees in your neighborhood are accustom to and go with those.

Learn more about turning your yard into a thriving eco-system.