6 Great Tips for DIY Lawn Care

Caring for your lawn takes work, but the benefits far exceed the time and effort it requires. For starters, professional lawn maintenance is expensive, so doing it yourself will save you money. Perhaps most important, you’ll have the pride of doing it yourself, and the satisfaction of knowing it gets done right. Follow DIY expert Noelle McCarney’s tips to get more proactive with your own lawn care.

Here’s How We Added New Life to Our Lawn

Our lawn can be so unpredictable, especially in spring. Once the snow melts and the weather starts flipping from cold to warm, it’s almost like our lawn doesn’t know how to react! We’ve picked up a few tips and tricks we think are worth sharing, not just for spring, but for the entire growing season. The staff at our local Home Hardware have been extremely helpful throughout the process, offering great advice and lawn care product suggestions.

Improving Our Topsoil

It’s easier to spread soil on shorter grass, but hold off on over-mowing in spring. It can cause weeds to spread rapidly (especially clover!) because they thrive in low cut conditions. We found that enriched lawn soil is a superior alternative to generic topsoil when seeding your spring lawn. A little goes a long way so it will save you money too.

Seeding Our Lawn

We’re lucky that most of our lawn gets a mixture of sun and shade. So we use an all-purpose grass seed on those areas. It’s designed for use in spring and fall and it works really well. But we do have a few areas that are exposed to the sun all day, which can result in heat damage. Here we’ve had great success with sun-resistant grass seed, which can be used in warmer summer soil and for repairing bald spots (see below!). We use a spreader to spread our grass seed on even turf areas. It’s so much easier than seeding by hand, and you can use it for fertilizer as well.

Repairing Bald Spots

This spring we had to focus on fixing bald spots in the lawn, which could be the result of sun damage, grubs, or wear and tear from our many backyard projects. We sprinkled the sun-resistant grass seed onto the bald spot and lightly raked it in. Then we added another layer of lawn soil, raked it into the mix, and watered the damaged area thoroughly.

Seed-Raking Our Lawn

Once we achieve a base layer of even turf, we continue to use grass seed as needed to thicken our lawn in mid-summer, and then again in the fall. All this seeding is definitely made easier with a seeding rake. This handy garden tool is double-sided, with tines on one side for raking seed into the topsoil, and a raised edge on the other side for smoothing out your soil.

Watering Our Lawn

Watering is crucial for successful lawn seeding. We water twice daily for the first three days, then once daily afterward to maintain moist soil so our seeds can germinate. We found a great oscillating sprinkler that keeps the water flowing all season long. It has an aluminum base for durability and an adjustable spray length for easy targeting of seeded lawn areas.

Fertilizing Our Lawn

As we move forward through the season we maintain the health of our lawn with a good lawn fertilizer. It helps to deepen the green hue of our lawn and also adds iron. This is important because iron-rich lawns tend to produce fewer weeds (like clover!). We use a non-staining formula to avoid damaging our patio. Helpful tip: don’t use lawn fertilizer and weed killer at the same time—one helps to germinate the grass, and the other prevents it.

It took us a few seasons of trial and error to achieve a beautiful, healthy lawn. We’re talking golf-green status! Now that we have it, we want to do everything we can to maintain it. In addition to appearance, it’s also a lush, soft space for the kids and pets to play on. There’s also an added bonus: because our hard work paid off so well, we really do enjoy working on our lawn. We can’t thank the staff at our local Home Hardware enough. They’re always friendly, always knowledgeable, and always willing to help.