This DIY guide to lawn care comes with the reassurance to you that this stuff works. As a lawn care expert, I can remember what it feels like when you are just starting out. I have worked for a major lawn care company for several years and then branched out on my own into my own lawn care business (and this is where most of my knowledge came).
So, let’s get started shall we.
As you progress through your own lawn care journey, you will find yourself learning more and more and more. It can be such a deep journey with lot’s of fascinating aspects if you want it to be!
What will you need to begin lawn care?
To start with, the most basic of tools you are going to need are as follows:
- A height adjustable mower
- A hosepipe
- A garden fork
- A metal spring rake (spring bok rake)
- A garden leaf rake
These tools will be enough to get you started.
Step 1:
So armed with these (and you can start out with just a mower and hosepipe), the first thing you want to do is make sure your mower blade is sharp. Do not worry just now if the machine is a £20 machine or a £2000 machine (it doesn’t usually make dramatic changes to the outcome, and you can still achieve a pleasing outcome with a £20 machine if the engine is strong, and the blades are sharp).
Step 2:
Now that we have a sharp mower, you need to adjust the height of your mowers cutting height to a higher setting. Usually there will be a lever down near the wheels you can move up or down. Hint: higher is better! The reason behind this is that taller grass can absorb more sunlight, Green up more and be stronger.
Step 3:
Mow your lawn very regularly. Once your grass grows up to your new higher setting you’ll want to mow the lawn between 1 and 3 times per week. Just doing this will make a huge difference (and I have tonnes of proof to back this up). People who mow more and more often get better lawns.
Step 4:
Water your lawn 2 to 3 times per week. Morning is better than evening time, but evening is better than no watering. Water deeply on each occasion. Watering like this is far better than watering every day.
I could end this article here with a summary because this TRULY is all you need to start improving your lawn better than what you have right now. Honestly, regular mowing, and not cutting your lawn too short, along with watering a couple of times a week deeply will make such a massive difference, even if you never do anything else.
But, of course, there is a lot more that can be done. Things such as scarifying, aerating, overseeding, topdressing, levelling the lawn, dealing with shade, drought, ants, grubs, lawn disease and more. These additional steps are things you should bear in mind (if you want to take your lawn to the next level) because these are things that you will need to carry out from time to time, as and when needed.
Scarifying and aerating will more than likely need to be done once per year, and at times more often.
Carrying out treatments for disease, grubs and ants will be as and when needed (often during high humidity in Summer.. and sometimes in Winter too!)
So, the key is just start out by getting the basics mastered first. I promise you your lawn will improve with the above steps.
But what about the garden fork and rakes?
I’m glad you asked! I wanted to keep things as simple as possible. That’s why the above 4 steps are the very first thing you should do, and do well. As for the other items, if you feel ready then I will briefly tell you what you can do with them.
Using a garden fork to aerate your lawn
The humble garden fork has been used for decades by gardeners, allotment owners and lawn lovers alike. Gardeners use a fork to turn the soil over in a border or bed. This is to help make the soil fluffier, or looser. In essence, it helps to incorporate air particles in and amongst the soil. 40 years ago I remember my parents turning a garden border into grass. They turned over the soil with a fork then levelled and reseeded. Once it had grown, the border grass grew 3 to 4 times faster and Greener than the main lawn itself for many months. So if you can do this in some fashion to your lawn (without digging it all over), you will help it to thrive.
This is where a fork comes in handy to help aerate your lawn. To do this properly you’ll want to ensure there is already moisture in the lawn first. You can do this by watering the lawn deeply an hour or so before aerating with the fork. Once the lawn is nice and damp, push the fork in down to at least 3 inches and pull out. For extra benefit you can lean the fork back once pushed in, and wiggle it back and forth a little to lift surrounding roots and soil a little. Pull and and then repeat over your lawn approximately every 3 or 4 inches.
While this technique is very beneficial, there is a small downside to aerating with a fork in that you are pushing some soil deeper into the ground and creating compacted areas deeper down. Please don’t let this put you off though. Our grandparents and those before them did this for decades. A more advanced version called hollow tine aeration (carried out with a manual tool or expensive machine) will do the same, but remove the core of soil. You don’t have to do this right away, and in fact, it can be something you consider getting into down the line. However, you will be pleasantly surprised how much using a fork actually helps.
Bonus tip: use the garden fork any time you notice brown areas forming to help relieve compaction in those areas!
What about the garden rakes you mentioned?
Sure. These offer you an additional task you can carry out from time to time. These rakes allow you to rake (or scarify) your lawn, and collect the material that has been raked out of the lawn.
So you would start off with a metal Springbok rake and rake your lawn. Again, this needs to be done with a little bit of moisture in the ground, but not too much. Scarifying can be quite damaging and aggressive when overdone (but often this is a good thing). Here are some Springbok rakes I mean on Amazon (affiliate link). I personally use the Bulldog brand myself and find them to be rock solid. You can see that these rakes have fixed metal spring tines. Please do not go for one of those adjustable metal rakes where you can adjust the fan size of the metal tines from narrow to a wide fan. I’ve found these to be way too flimsy.
Just start by using the rake firmly and pull it hard across the lawn. You will likely have to rake the same spot between 5 and 20 times. As you do this you will notice material being dragged up, and you will start to see your lawn looking quite ragged and rough (this is all perfectly normal). The aim of scarifying is to remove the dead layer of organic buildup (known as “thatch”) from the surface of the ground. This thatch layer has built up over months, and lays down flat, nestled in and amongst the blades of grass.
Note: You will quickly realise that this is one way to get a very good workout!
Perhaps you can do an hour a day and start off on at one corner or edge, and gradually work your way across the lawn.
Hint: For a low cost advanced (and more aggressive) scarifying rake, I’ve been using a Wolf Garten version. These are quite literally the BEST manual way to scarify your lawn effectively. They are so effective that you can speed up your scarifying time considerably. With just 2 to 5 rakes back and forth you will often have removed enough thatch. These aren’t cheap, but they are extremely well made and come with a 10-year warranty. You’ll need to purchase separately the rake head attachment and the handle, as they click together (another benefit of the Wolf Garten range is they have a whole host of different attachments that can be fitted to the handle with a simple click to lock system.
There are 2 “head” attachment types.. one with wheels (recommended) and one without (which I use). I find these to be excellent for getting into small areas, and along the edges of the lawn where my scarifying machine cannot reach. You can see the wheeled version here, the non-wheeled version here, and the handle here, all on Amazon (these are affiliated links). I personally use these tools.
just be aware that these are very sharp and aggressive and over-use will rip out more thatch unless you are careful in your use.
Use your other rake, the leaf rake to rake up the dead material into piles which you can later on pop into your garden waste bin. Again, here are the sort of leaf rakes that I mean on Amazon (affiliate link), and again I always go for the Bulldog brand myself. These are pretty indestructible. A leaf rake collects the dead material (and leaves!) very effectively without damaging the lawn. If you look at that list you will see other brands underneath. Years ago I used a different brand and found the plastic raking part to be very thin and flimsy and would snap after a short period of time. I can’t stress enough how good the Bulldog ones are though (and I use mine heavily multiple times a year on customer lawns).
In-depth Explanation
Why should you have a sharp blade on your mower?
Simply put, a sharp blade can make neat cuts as it spins fast across the blade. Imagine a Samurai warrior swinging his sword. If it was as blunt as a wooden block it would not cut its intended victim. Instead, it would either make a rough cut or tear or bounce off. It’s similar to your mower blades. Remember the engine needs to have some strength in it to spin the blades well. If your mower feels limp and lifeless then it may be time to upgrade!
So with the engine spinning the shaft and blades nice and fast, the next thing you want is a super sharp blade. In this state, the blades spin round very fast and make a neat cut across the blade.
If your blade is dull, and it has little nicks/cuts in it (from hitting stones, edges etc.) then it is going to bend the blade of grass over and tear the grass, as opposed to making a nice clean cut.
Why should you mow higher?
So, the way that grass works or thrives, is that each blade of grass absorbs sunlight. It then uses Photosynthesis to feed the grass plant and give it some colour. So with this in mind, if you cut the lawn really short all the time, it can’t be thriving at it’s healthiest. It’s like having a team of athletes and feeding them water and 1 rice cracker a day, while only letting them out to exercise 5 minutes a day. Soon they will become weak. They arent getting what they need to perform at their best. Eventually they will succumb to illness, disease and many other life complications.
So if you mow your grass to at least 1 inch, (although anywhere 1 to 3 inches is great – mine is typically at around 2.5 inches), then each blade of grass can absorb plenty of sunlight. This then creates sugar which then feeds the grass and ultimately makes it stronger grass. Grass that can withstand all manner of things far easier. A stronger grass will be a Greener grass!
Why mow your lawn more often?
Tree surgeons will tell you that if you top a tree (cut off the height) then the tree will divert it’s energy into lateral growth (sideways growth). In a similar sort of way, when you mow every 2 days you are allowing the lawn to thicken up. This is how it works.
You may well have heard of the one-third rule. This is a rule which states that you should never mow more than one-third of your grass height at a time. Grass stores energy in the blades, and so if you let it grow too tall (by mowing less often) then cut it short, you are putting the grass under stress. You have just got rid of the energy stores that the grass was holding, so this is why lawns look Brown if you don’t mow regular and you cut off too much in one go. Much better if it gets long to cut a bit off, wait a day or 2 then cut a bit more off till you get down to the desired height.
So the aim of the game is to literally just “cut the tops off”, and as often as possible! There is one guy who was crowned as owning the best lawn in the Uk. He mowed almost every single day.
Also when you mow more often and just take off the top few millimetres, you aren’t cutting out the grass energy reserves, and so it repays you by staying Green, and thickening up (just what we are looking far, yay!)
Why water your lawn just a couple of times a week?
If you water your lawn every day, it knows that water is readily available at all times. It has no need to develop deeper roots. So as a result the lawn may look nice, but as soon as you take your foot off the pedal with watering it begins to suffer. New lawns can take 6 to 12 months to become well established, and I’ve seen a few lawns that looked great after reseeding, only for the customer to stop watering and find the grass keels over and dies off. You can take these risks once it’s more established.
The best results are when you water just twice per week deeply, as opposed to every day for a few minutes. This way the grass still gets the same volume of water per week (around 1 to 1.5 inches). You can measure this with an empty Tuna can placed where you are watering to time how long it takes to fill a Tuna can, which is around 1 inch in height. You would be looking for around a half to 3 quarters of a tin of Tuna filled with water each time you water, to make up around 1 to 1.5 tins per week. Even 2 tins would be fine.
When you water your lawns in this way, on the dry days, the roots have to push down deeper to seek out and find water in the ground. This forces them to grow, and as they grow the root system becomes better developed, and thus creates a stronger, healthier, happier grass plant!
Summary
I hope this beginners guide to lawn care has helped. truly I do. I have honestly poured out to you the exact things I say to my customers, word for word. These are the basics when it comes to getting your lawn nice and Green. if you can get these steps nailed then you can start to look at some additional things to do to take things to the next level. Things such as fertilizing and weedkilling, scarifying, aerating, reseeding, topdressing and more. All of these can be found here at Dream Lawns.
Thank you!
Shaun
