Tips for Taking Care of Your Lawn as a New Homeowner
So you have taken the big plunge into your future and have bought your first house. Congratulations! Becoming a homeowner for the first time is undoubtedly an exciting moment, and you will probably always look back fondly on the sense of accomplishment you are currently feeling. While this new home will provide you with countless memories, stories, and satisfy many dreams, owning it will also bring around several challenges that you will need to face. One of those challenges – or really a set of challenges – is keeping up with the demands of maintenance. Owning your own house means that there is no longer a landlord or property manager to turn to when things stop working. You are now the one in charge of repairs, upgrades, and maintenance, which can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.
Nevertheless, blogs like this one exist to help you face those challenges and move forward as a confident, proud homeowner. Today’s post is going to tackle one of the challenges that you may now need to face that might not have ever been on your radar before: lawn care. While it might sound silly, lawn and garden care are very time consuming, necessary things. If you do not know what you are doing, things can get out of hand or way too expensive very quickly. This post is going to break down all of the basic things you need to know about lawn and garden care so that you can confidently handle your lawn and garden this spring and summer.
Is Your Lawn Even Your Responsibility?
Surprisingly, the answer to this question is just “maybe.” Usually, homeowners are responsible for keeping their lawns and gardens neat and trimmed themselves. This is generally a responsibility that falls on nobody but you. In fact, many places even require certain standards of lawn care. If you live in a housing community, for example, they might demand that your grass be kept below a certain height at all times. This is both for cosmetic and safety reasons, as tall grass is both unsightly and also a potential home for unwanted guests, like snakes and vermin. Often, you even sign an agreement like this before you are allowed to buy the house, that way they have your consent to the community standards in writing.
This is not always the case, though. Some communities have these standards, but provide the services to you for a fee, which may be included in the HOA (Homeowners Association) fee that you might be paying. Some communities – especially retirement communities – assess a monthly or yearly fee to do routine outdoor maintenance and lawn care for you on a pre-scheduled basis. If this is you, then you really have no more need for this post! However, if you are part of the majority of people who are tasked with taking care of their own lawn, keep reading.
How Often Should You Mow Your Lawn?
The answer to this question is highly dependent on a few factors. First and foremost, you should aim to mow your lawn when it needs to be cut – it is as simple as that. Just like you get your hair cut when it starts to get too long, you should also mow your lawn with some regularity. The difference is that it is better to mow your lawn before it gets out of control. Waiting too long between mowing sessions makes the grass harder to cut, which in turn makes the lawn mowing job less clean, even, and lasting. If your grass isn’t trimmed to be even, parts of it will need to be mowed pretty quickly after the fact.
Generally, the rule of thumb is to mow your lawn weekly during its growing season. This is the spring and summer, and may include the fall and winter if you live in a warm enough place. If your grass is growing more, it only makes sense that you will need to cut it more. In the cooler months, when the growth slows down, your mowing frequency could even slow all the way down to zero cuts per month. The most important thing is that you pick a length you like to cut your grass to and keep it within a couple inches of that length at all times.
How Short Should I Cut My Grass?
While there is some wiggle room here, it is generally agreed upon that most breeds of grass should be kept at 2.5 to 3 inches for the bulk of the year and then 3 to 3.5 inches during the hottest part of the year. This is because the extra half inch of length can help provide insulation to the soil from the summer heat, which helps to keep the nutrients moving properly into the root systems of the grass. Some types of grass, like the grass on golf courses and commonly found in Florida, thrives at short lengths and can be cut to a very cropped length. On the topic of length, you should never cut more than the top third of the blades of grass at a time, as cutting more can cause a shock to the grass plants and lead to patches of dead grass.
Should I Bag My Grass Clippings?
This fully depends on your preferences. Bagging your grass clippings leads to many potential benefits, but can take a lot of extra time and energy in the process. Most bags fill up pretty quickly and need to be emptied several times throughout the course of the mowing session in order to bag the full yard’s clippings. Now, why would you want to bag your grass clippings? Firstly, it leads to a cleaner yard. Grass clippings dry out and clump up, which can be unsightly. Additionally, large clumps of grass clippings can block sunlight to patches of live grass, killing the grass in those areas and leading to the need for time-consuming lawn repairs.
Bagging your grass clippings can do you more good than just beautifying your yard, too. Glass clippings are a common composting component, which can turn into great fertilizer for your garden. This is highly sustainable, leads to better garden crops, and costs you absolutely nothing! Additionally, if you don’t use toxic products in your yard, using composted grass clippings as soil is much healthier than many store-bought fertilizer products and soil additives.
What is Lawn Aeration, and Should I Do It?
Lawn aeration is a procedure that takes narrow cylinders of grass and soil out of your yard. Machines are used to dig several inches into the ground and pull small apple core shaped pieces of land out of the lawn. These resulting holes are great for nutrient and water storage, and the process is generally considered to be very healthy for your lawn.
While it is considered to be a successful tool to improving your lawn’s appearance and health, aeration can be expensive, and the results can be marginal compared to other lawn care tactics. There is absolutely nothing wrong with aerating your lawn, and it will most likely lead to nicer grass, but the effects often do not measure up to the expenses. Many people shell out hundreds of dollars for aeration services and notice little difference in the appearance of their yard after the fact. If you are operating on a budget, this might be something to considered skipping.
Should I Roll My Lawn?
Rolling your lawn is a tactic that is typically reserved for immediately after seeding. When you spread new grass seed on your lawn, birds and wind can often diminish the effects of your reseeding attempts. Excess rain is another culprit that leads to the diminishing of your newly spread seed. Rolling is a tactic that is used to press the newly spread grass seeds deeper into the ground, that way they can germinate more effectively and grow roots before external factors try to take them away. If you spread seeds to any place in your lawn, it is a great idea to use a lawn roller to press them further into the soil. If you are not spreading any new seeds, though, there is no reason to use a roller.
How Often Should I Reseed My Lawn?
Generally speaking, you should reseed your lawn every 4 years. This is because over time, the grass naturally thins out and the roots weaken. Reseeding helps to make up for any grass that has died or weakened over the years, leading to a thicker and denser lawn. Having a thick and dense lawn is very important, as it helps to protect the root systems and provides a better defense against pesky weeds. Reseeding doesn’t need to be expensive, and is something that you can absolutely do yourself. Many companies will charge hundreds to thousands of dollars to reseed your lawn, but a simple trip to the hardware store can get the job done for you for a fraction of the price.
What Time of the Year Should I Reseed My Lawn?
If you do decide to reseed your lawn every few years, the time of the year that you do the reseeding is very important. Reseeding your lawn at the wrong time of the year can lead to very poor results, and frankly can be a big waste of money. Generally speaking, the best time to reseed your lawn is in the early fall, because the soils is still warm and the air temperature is cooler. This combination helps the new seeds to effectively germinate in the soil and start to grow strong roots before the colder winter sets in. Reseeding in the winter is the worst time of the year, as the soil lacks nutrients and can even be frozen, depending on where you live.
Do I Need To Use Weed Killing Products on My Lawn?
There are many different stances and opinions on the answer to this question. Weed killers tend to have many harmful substances in them, which can be bad for children, pets, and wildlife. At the same time, having weeds in your yard is a total nuisance and can make you the least popular neighbor very quickly. How do you keep weeds out of your yard without using weed killers, then? Well, you really can’t. If the weeds are spreading into your yard, it is pretty inevitable that they will continue to spread until you take care of them for good. Weeding is effective at reducing the number of weeds in your yard or garden, but it almost never exterminates the weeds fully from your yard.
Your best alternative is probably to turn to weed killers that do not use harmful substances, or at least ones that use as few harmful substances as possible. While you might not be able to fully avoid harmful substances, you can likely find products that are not toxic to humans or animals. These products can be the best compromise for you, as they eliminate pesky weeds once and for all without exposing you or your loved ones to any long-term risks.
Now, when should you use weed killers? Frankly, as soon as possible. You can even use weed killers in a preventative manner, spraying your yard before weeds even show themselves. Much like termites, by the time you see the weeds growing it may already be too late to stop their invasion. Even if you do see them, you will have much better luck killing 10 weeds than 100, and their spread increases exponentially the longer you leave them unattended. Acting faster can save you a lot of time and money when it is all said and done.
Is It Worth Hiring Lawn Care Professionals?
The answer to this question depends on your budget and your willingness to work with your hands. Factually, you can save hundreds to thousands of dollars by doing the work yourself. However, this work is very demanding, and you will likely never do as good of a job as the professionals will. After all, they do it for a living! If this is your first home, odds are you are on a bit of a tighter budget than someone who has owned many homes before. If you are trying to save money, doing the work yourself is the answer. However, if you can afford to pay a premium to have someone else do the work for you, or if you are not physically able to complete all of the arduous yard work on your own, hiring a certified lawn care professional is always a fantastic option and will almost always lead to pleasing results.
Thanks for reading our post about taking care of your lawn as a new homeowner. Lawn care is something that many people fail to think about before moving in to their first home, and we hope that this post has helped to take answer some of the questions or fears that you may have had. Lawn care really is easy, although it does take effort. Proper planning and understanding can help you to have the nicest yard on the block in no time, and doing things yourself can save you thousands of dollars in the process.
If you visit Myrtle Beach or any other place in South Carolina and fall in love, reach out to us for help. We at The Boyd Team are always here to help you figure out whether Myrtle Beach is your next home or not, and we are committed to helping you find the right property for your needs and dreams. Any question that you have about moving to the area and finding your dream home by the beach is our pleasure to answer. Feel free to send us an email at eddie@boydteam.com or text or call us at (843) 222-8566, and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Being true natives of the Grand Strand and Horry County and with over 25 years of experience in the local real estate market, whether buying or selling, we can help you make your dreams a reality.
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