Celebrate National Lawn Care Month: Tips for Taking Care of Your Lawn Between Professional Visits

How Healthy Lawns Benefit You, Your Family, & Your Community

Why should you care about your lawn and the benefits it brings?

Healthy grass provides a safe place for kids to play. So, suppose your kids love playing soccer or tag in your yard. When they fall, the thick grass helps cushion their fall and reduce scrapes and cuts.

Plus, who doesn’t enjoy walking barefoot on a dense lawn? When you invest in professional lawn care, you and your family can have fun on your property all season.

Here are eight other perks of prioritizing grass health that benefits your community:

1. A 5,000 sq. ft. grass lawn provides enough oxygen for 14 to 34 people.
2. Climate change causes too much carbon to stay in the air. An article on Love Your Landscape (produced through the National Association of Landscape Professionals) found that lawns capture 81-90% of carbon dioxide.  Love Your Landscape also noted a recent study of typical urban areas in which low- to mid-density residential lots captured over 50% of carbon from city green spaces.
3. Walking barefoot on a grassy lawn doesn’t burn your feet like asphalt because turfgrass is cooler—up to 60°F than pavement.
4. Are you worried about flooding on your property? Then, consider a grass lawn to stop erosion and control rainwater. Turfgrass reduces runoff 6 to 18 times over bare soil.
5. Residential lawns contain many grass varieties, creating biodiverse soil underground.
6. In south central PA, we typically get enough rainfall that turfgrass doesn’t need additional irrigation. Additionally, cool-season grasses, which grow in south central PA home lawns, go dormant when summer daytime temperatures soar over 90°F and there’s little rainfall.
7. The U.S. has strict regulations for pest and weed controls used on lawns. Lawn care technicians who apply these controls on people’s lawns must take classes and a test to use these chemicals.
8. A healthy lawn increases home values by 10-15%. The National Association for Landscape Professionals found in a consumer survey that 79% of Americans consider a lawn an essential part of buying or renting a home.

Learn more: Spring Into Action: Prepping Your Central PA Lawn for Spring

Lawn Maintenance Tips for In-Between Lawn Care

Depending on the lawn care package you choose for your turfgrass, our technicians may work on your property every two weeks or more. Our technicians will test your soil with any package, ensuring you get the best lawn and soil care.

However, you must also ensure grass health in between lawn care visits. Our lawn care technicians will leave directions regarding when to mow your lawn after overseeding, when to water after fertilization, and how to connect with us if you have questions.

Here are seven lawn maintenance tips to employ for in-between lawn care: 

1. Take your mower to be serviced before turfgrass needs mowing. Just like your car needs a tune-up before a long drive, your mower should be inspected to ensure the spark plugs are working and the blades are sharpened.
2. Mow at the correct height. Since your yard has cool season turfgrass, it’s safe to cut the top third off the grass starting in late spring. You’ll mow more frequently when grass is growing rapidly in early spring. You can also mow a little shorter during this time, but once growth slows down, you’ll need to raise your mower blades. You’ll mow less often during the summer when turfgrass growth slows down. Many lawns go dormant in mid-summer due to high temperatures and a lack of rain, where you may not mow for weeks.
3. Mow in different directions. You should mow in the opposite direction each time you cut your grass. Mowing in different directions helps to give your lawn an even cut and prevent ruts from developing in your yard.
4. Don’t mow your lawn when the grass is damp or on a hot day. Mowing wet grass can cause lawn disease since fungi and moisture cause most diseases. So avoid mowing when your lawn is damp from dew or recent rainfall. You also don’t want to mow your lawn in the heat of the day. Since turfgrass is already stressed from mowing, hot afternoon temperatures add to the stress and will affect grass health.
5. Get your in-ground sprinkler system opened by Memorial Day. When you open your lawn sprinkler system, have your technician check it to ensure there are no leaks or broken spray heads, and set the timer for efficient watering.  You can also upgrade your irrigation system with a weather or moisture sensor to improve water conservation and save money on your water bills. If you don’t have an in-ground sprinkler system, invest in soaker hoses with a timer so water can slowly seep into the soil to give it a deep soak without runoff.  The timer will shut off at the time you set. For instance, you can set your soaker hose time to turn off after 15-30 minutes. Read more: 4 Tips for a Beautiful Lawn This Spring
6. Correctly water your lawn per week rather than daily. Turfgrass science has shown that lawns only need 1” to 2” of water per week, which includes any rainfall from that week. Deep watering once or twice a week encourages turfgrass roots to go deeper into the soil.
7. Commit to sustainable lawn care. Investing in your grass’s health by fertilizing, core aeration/dethatching, weed control, and overseeding all work toward a dense, thick lawn that crowds out weeds and creates a curb appeal you’ll be proud of.

DIY Lawn Care Versus TomBom Lawn Care

What is better—do-it-yourself lawn care or hiring a professional lawn service? It depends on you. DIY lawn care may be best if you have a green thumb and love working on your property.

However, if you’re a two-career family or have a brown thumb, it’s better to hire TomBom Lawn Care to take care of your Central PA yard for you.

If you want to only worry about mowing your lawn and turning on your irrigation system during the summer, you’ll benefit from TomBom Lawn Care.

Summing Up

Science has shown that turfgrass lawns help sequester carbon from the atmosphere and provide a soft space to play. Having a grass lawn won’t damage the environment, but it will increase the time you spend outside enjoying your green space.

Grass health is essential for attractive curb appeal and for providing many health benefits.

Even when you hire TomBom Lawn Care to provide sustainable lawn care, you still need to employ home lawn care practices between visits.