Monday 26 September 2016

Calgary Lawn Care | Four Essential Tips For Healthy Lawn

A lawn inside a home acts as a welcome mat that offers a great feeling of comfort. It's usually the first thing visitors may notice while entering inside your residence. A lush green garden with blooming herbs and hedges in Calgary can make a person feel like he's close to mother nature. Owing an attractive yard with low overall maintenance is quite important for home-owners. A good lawn care with efficient mowing, fertilizing and watering techniques is crucial to keep it healthy, without an excessive burden of maintenance. 

Tips that should be kept in mind for a healthy lawn are:

Lawn Mowing

How Often to Mow: A magnificent looking lawn requires regular care along with mowing and trimming. Practice mowing every two weeks to ensure regulated growth. This will force the grass to shade out unwanted weeds and also helps in developing stronger root system. Its advised not to trim it more than one third of its overall length. Also, mow using a sharp blade only when the grass is dry to ensure cleaner cutting.

Weed Control
Prevent Weeds in the Lawn: A lawn is only said to be proper, if it doesn't contain bare spots or patchy areas. If there is any bare area, aerate it to reseed the grass bed. In some situations, grass isn't able to grow properly leaving behind patchy spots. One should try to grow a flower bed there. Weed and wild grass generally grows in an ill-maintained lawn. If you think your garden is well-manicured, then try to find any weed growth. A weedy garden can't be considered healthy. Use sprays to reduce unwanted plants. They can be even plucked with hand.

Fertilizing A Lawn: If one is aiming for effective lawn maintenance, there is a huge need to fertilize it with nitrogen to sustain a thick, lush green grass. Phosphorus and potassium can also offer enough nutrition to grass bed. Soil quality differs from place to place, so there's need to regulate soil nutrients in an equivalent manner throughout the yard. Using slow-release fertilizers will take time to offer nutrients, ensuring you don't need to apply them more often. Its recommended fertilizing a lawn after the mowing technique, to offer more nutrition. Aerating it before offering fertilizers will ensure proper air and nutrition to reach till the roots of grass. A healthy and well nutritive yard will resist the attacks of pests and grass diseases to a great extent.

Watering a lawnWatering A Lawn: It's one of the best lawn maintenance technique that works more effectively after aerating and mowing process has been applied. If you are living in a normal temperature area of 15-20 degrees then, its sufficient to water your yard twice a week. For higher temperatures, frequent watering may be needed. Rather than using a pipe to water a garden, sprinkling technique is more favoured. Native grasses and organic lawns generally require less water. Watering needs can also be reduced by improving the soil quality of a yard.
These were the few tips that can help in improving looks and maintaining health of a lawn. The Lawnfather is a leading company that offers high quality lawn installation, maintenance and snow removal services in Calgary.

Monday 5 September 2016

How To Maintain A Healthy And Beautiful Lawn | Tips & Ideas

A beautiful lawn is necessary for curb appeal of a home. It not only beautifies but also provide a healthy environment to stay. A marvellous lawn depends on quality of sod and the level of hard work done to take its care. There is no better technique to enhance lawn beauty other than improving the soil before sod installation. Loam soil is considered best for producing a high yield and low maintenance lawn. The soil depth should be 4- 6 inches. A graceful and a healthy lawn is a desire for one and all. It needs to maintained from the first day itself for good results.

Steps to follow for lawn maintenance:

1. Clear the site:
The first thing that should be prioritized is cleaning the site for any building materials such as wood, cement, buried stones or other debris. The dried leaves should also be picked or removed for a clean and appealing look.

2. Rough grade the entire area: To provide a plain ground level and to avoid any excessive water drainage problem inside the lawn, you need to fill the low lying areas of the yard. A tractor-mounted blade is often used for rough grading an entire area. If the lawn is smaller, then it can be graded using hand tools. This technique is done to uncover debris that should be removed instead of burying.

3. Eliminate weeds:
Weeds are the unwanted plants that take away the nutrition necessary for sod growth. They grow very fast as compared to grass. It is recommended to spray the sodded area before initial tilling with a non selective herbicide. After tilling, fertilize the soil and water the lawn to encourage new weed growth. Allow the weeds to grow at their speed. After two weeks, spray the herbicides for the second time aiming to remove their entire generation.

4. Initial tilling: The good depth to install sod and turf grass is at least 3- 4 inches deep. Till the soil for about 5 cm to add any topsoil or soil modification. This will control the weed growth, alleviate soil compaction and bond the topsoil to the subsoil to improve water movement and root penetration.

5. Test the soil pH:  pH testing is necessary to check the quality of soil. It is a chemical test that determine, if any correction materials are required to improve the quality of soil. pH levels range from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral, below 7 is acidic and above 7 is alkaline. The optimal pH required for good growth of plants and grass is between 5.5 and 7.0. Acidic soils can be improved by adding lime and alkaline soils can be improved with addition of sulphur or gypsum.

6. Fertilize and aerate:
Fertilizers provide proper nutrition used for growth. It is advised to use a fertilizer that is high in phosphate. Don't use it in excess, as it can lead to grass decaying. Before applying fertilizers, aerate the yard. Aeration is a technique of removing or pumping holes to the upper tough layer of soil, so as to allow water and air to reach till the roots of grass. After aerating, fertilize the yard so that good amount of nutrients can reach it. 
 
A cultivated sod grass can allow you to own an instantly beautiful lawn without any time-consuming hassles of seeding or springing. When purchasing turf or sod, consult a lawn care professional to be assured of buying a fine quality grass. The Lawnfather, is one of the largest lawn maintenance company in Calgary that specializes in lawn care, landscaping and snow removal services in Canada.