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Restoring a Lawn
How to Restore a Lawn without Breaking
Your Budget or Back
By Mark J. Donovan
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Over time lawns can begin to look
a little long in the tooth. Insect damage, weed infestation, and drought can
play havoc on a lawn. Many homeowners often think the only solution to
restoring a lawn is to spread new and expensive topsoil over the yard and
then re-seed it. The effort and cost required is often viewed so prohibitive
by homeowners that they just say the heck with it and continue to let the
lawn go. That’s unfortunate, because a beautiful lawn can really dress up the
curb appeal and value of a home. In addition, restoring a lawn to its
original beauty is often much easier and cheaper to do than many homeowners
realize.
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In many cases restoring a lawn
does not require new topsoil. With a few basic lawn maintenance techniques
and the use of much lower cost fertilizer materials a lawn can often be
restored to its original luster.
Lawn
Restoration
First, start by raking and
de-thatching the lawn. Raking and de-thatching the lawn lifts up the dead and
matted down lawn clippings that have worked their way down to the soil level.
By raking and de-thatching the lawn, sunlight, water, oxygen and fertilizer
nutrients can more easily work their way into the soil. All of these
ingredients are critical for growing a green and healthy lawn.
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After de-thatching the lawn apply a
weed killer to the lawn and let it sit on the lawn for 1 to 2 weeks.
After the weed killer has had a couple of weeks to work, mow the lawn down to
about a 1 inch level.
Next, aerate the lawn using a coring aerator. You can rent core aerators at any
tool rental facility. A core aerator has small hollow and circular tines that
remove small plugs or cores from the soil that are approximately ½” in diameter
and several inches in length. Aerating the lawn helps to loosen the lawn soil
and again enables sunlight, fertilizer nutrients, oxygen and water to better
penetrate the soil.
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After aerating the lawn spread a light layer of compost material over the lawn.
Usually a half inch layer is all that is required. Compost material is rich in
nutrients and helps to stimulate the soil to improve grass seed germination and
lawn growth.
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In addition to the compost
material, also apply an application of starter fertilizer on top of the soil.
Finally apply a grass seed over the restored lawn area and then gently rake
the grass seed into the compost and fertilized soil top coat. The raking
action helps to cover the grass seed a little, and works the compost,
fertilizer and grass seed into the core plugs.
After raking in the grass seed, water the lawn thoroughly to complete the
lawn restoration process. Follow up daily with ¼” of additional watering
until the new grass seed is fully germinated and is up a couple of inches. |
Photo by Mark Donovan
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Restoring a lawn using this method is much less expensive and much easier on
the body. Within 2 to 3 weeks your lawn should be looking beautiful again.
Once your lawn has been fully re-established make sure to fertilize it
several times a year. Also, apply at least once a year a fertilizer with a
pre-emergent to control crabgrass growth. In addition, apply a grub killer
once a year to prevent insect lawn damage.
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Related Articles and Videos
Lawn Maintenance and Lawn Restoration Tools from Amazon.com
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