Frugal Lawn Care
Tips to Care for Your Lawn, Prevent Weeds and Fertilize Grass
Cheap and easy tips for a green, (relatively) weed-free lawn
A green lawn with uniform blades of grass may be the ideal for a putting green or lawn chemical company brochure, but the fertilizers and weed killers, time and expense required to maintain such a perfect swath of verdant acreage is hard on the environment and your wallet. Keep these frugal lawn care tips in mind to sport a healthy, attractive patch of grass and save money and time.
Mow high
This mantra of good lawn care bears repeating—keep your grass long to shade out weeds and foster deep rooted grass plants. Mow northern lawns of Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass and fescues at a height of 3 to 3-1/2 inches for most of the mowing season. Cut your lawn shorter in the spring to warm up the soil and mow it short again in the late fall to discourage fungus growth. Also, cut no more than one-third of the grass blade at each mowing. Shearing more than a third of the blade damages the plant. Mow southern grasses, such as Bermuda and St. Augustine, a little shorter throughout the year.
Keep your mower blade sharp to avoid injuring grass blades.
Mulch grass clippings
Leave your grass clippings on the lawn and you will provide a good portion of the fertilizer your grass needs. Grass clippings contain about 4 percent nitrogen (N), 1 percent phosphorous (P) and 3 percent potash (K), which makes them an ideal fertilizer for turf. Clippings also provide a temporary mulch to keep soil wetter. Mulched clippings do not contribute to thatch, the layer of dead grass that can build up in over fertilized lawns. Grass clippings are composed of 75 to 80 percent water and decompose quickly.
Bag or collect your grass clippings only when weeds go to seed. Either compost your clippings or use them as mulch in a garden or flower bed. If weed seeds sprout from the mulch next year, they are easier to pull from a planting bed than from your lawn.
Water deeply and infrequently
Give your established lawn about an inch of water a week, including rainfall. Turn on the sprinklers in the morning to let the grass dry out before nightfall to avoid a fungus infestation. Deep, infrequent watering (about once a week) saturates the ground and makes grass roots grow deeper.
Let an established lawn enter dormancy during the dog days of summer and save on your water bill. Your grass will green up when fall precipitation returns.
Fertilize and prevent weeds with products from the feed store
Bypass the bags from your big box stores and hit your local feed store for a few bags of soybean meal, at $7-10 per each 50-pound bag. Apply at a rate of 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Fertilize in the fall to promote root growth and early spring green up.
Corn gluten meal, another product from the feed store, serves as a weed preventer. Apply 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet in the spring before seeds germinate.
Neither of these organic options can burn your lawn, which is an additional benefit over commercial, non-organic options.
Learn to love clover, yarrow
Some of the plants we consider weeds are actually good for your lawn. Clover fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere and adds it to your soil. Yarrow mowed short fills in bare spots with feathery, deep green foliage.
Overseed some of your yard every fall
Overseeding an established lawn with additional grass seed requires adequate water and patience. Unless you have a sprinkler system and can keep pets and kids off your entire lawn, overseed a portion of your lawn each fall. Mow low in that area, rake up thatch and sow with new, improved varieties of seeds for your climate. Water twice a day to keep seeds moist until they sprout. Water daily until your grass is three inches high.
Overseeding creates a thick lawn that crowds out weeds. No more toxic weed killers!
