The Homeowner’s Guide to Preparing for Spring Lawn Care

Now is the perfect time of year to plan ahead. The temperatures aren’t quite warm enough for the lawn to start coming out of winter dormancy, but spring is closer than we think. Before the grass starts waking up and the trees start budding up, it’s a good idea to get prepared. By planning ahead with your spring lawn care, you give your lawn a better chance of staying healthy all year long. Here are a few tips to prepare for spring lawn care.

Remove the Lawn Debris

At the end of winter, when the snow finally melts, it often reveals a messy lawn. Leaves, sticks, twigs, and other forms of litter provide the perfect environment for a variety of threats. From fungi and lawn diseases to turf-eating pests. If a lawn starts off its year with a lawn fungus, disease, or pest infestation, then that lawn is not off to a healthy start. Stress from these threats weakens the grass’s immune system, causing it to be even more vulnerable. Get ahead of the issues by cleaning up your lawn before it wakes up. Rake the leaves and remove the sticks and twigs. Either add them to your compost or dispose of them properly. If you find evidence of lawn disease, pests, or fungi, be sure to seek out lawn care services near you.

Preventing and Controlling Weeds

Weed control is tough all year long. One way to make your summer and fall weed control easier is by being proactive with your spring weed control. Shortly after the soil thaws and the temperatures are consistently above freezing throughout the day and night, the weed seeds wake up. Weed seeds overwinter on your lawn, waiting for this moment. In a short time, your lawn will be infested with the first generation of spring weed. From that point on, it’s going to be a struggle. But there is a way to get ahead of the weeds.

Treating your lawn in the early spring with pre-emergent herbicide is the best way to dramatically reduce the number of weeds in that first generation. Pre-emergent herbicides work by preventing ungerminated seeds from sprouting. These early spring herbicides work on most grassy weeds, including crabgrass. If you want to make sure your lawn is weed-free throughout the entire year, then you may need to call weed control services near you.

Common Spring Weeds in New Jersey Lawns:

• Groundsel
• Henbit
• Crabgrass
• Common Chickweed
• Dandelion
• Shepherd’s Purse

Irrigation Preparation

One of the most important elements of a healthy and beautiful lawn is proper irrigation. In order to properly irrigate your lawn, it’s important to properly maintain your irrigation system. After the last frost of the year, it’s time to turn the sprinklers back on. Do it slowly, turning on one zone at a time to check for any damage. It’s not unusual to find damaged sprinkler heads or ruptured lines if the sprinkler system wasn’t winterized in time.

A great way to prepare for spring lawn care is with a little bit of irrigation preparation. Figuring out the perfect watering schedule for your lawn. Keep in mind that a lawn only needs about one inch of water per week and that can come from the rain as well. Once the temperatures warm up and the irrigation begins, make sure you’re only watering in the morning. This lets the sun dry the excess water throughout the day so the grass isn’t wet overnight. If the grass is wet overnight, this leads to some nasty lawn diseases and fungal infections.

Spring Mosquito Prevention

Once your lawn care strategy is planned out, make sure to spend some time on mosquito prevention. Mosquitoes become active again in the spring, as soon as the temperatures are warm enough. Many of the mosquitoes that will plague you in the spring are actually overwintering on your lawn right now. At the end of mosquito season, the mosquitoes lay their last eggs which later hatch in the spring to become the first generation. You can prevent this first generation and drastically reduce their numbers throughout the year, making spring, summer, and fall mosquito control much more manageable.

Mosquitoes lay eggs in standing water, wherever they find it. This could be in clogged gutters, buckets, flowerpots, kids’ toys, birdbaths, and more. The key to mosquito prevention is to remove all of the standing water from your property. Mosquitoes don’t like to fly long distances so they typically stay near to where they were born. By eliminating these mosquito nurseries, you drastically reduce the current and future mosquito populations. Do this every seven days, or after a rainstorm, to ensure future generations don’t have a chance.

Get Off to a Great Start With Services From Harvest Lawn Care

These tips will help you prepare for spring lawn care and give your lawn a great start to the year. If you need a little help then it’s time to invest in lawn care services near you. Here at Harvest Lawn Care, we have the premium lawn care services and programs needed to keep your New Jersey lawn green and healthy all year.