The title of this article sounds stupid but let us explain. Your Lawn is a living plant and there are 4 main criteria you need to address in keeping a living plant alive
L – Light
A – Air
W – Water
N – Nutrients
Keeping in mind that you can’t do anything about the sunlight because you’ve already selected a lawn that’s either in the shade or it’s growing in full sun.
Thus the three parameters to look after are, ensuring that the plant’s got enough water, enough nutrients to survive and the lawn is aerated. We will cover the aeration needs of lawn on another post.
Particularly in the young stages of growth, after you’ve laid it, you have no root system and the plant has got no depth to the soil from which to explore It is imperative to maintain a little but often watering program. It is not the once a day huge watering – it is little but often.
Combine this with a good nutritious soil or a dressing of fertilizer to provide the plant nutrients then the lawn will thrive .
For the first 12 months the lawn is still establishing itself. It takes quite some time for those roots to fully penetrate to the depths, so it has to have a full soil from which to explore.
Regular watering in the first twelve months is important for the establishment of the lawn.
Associated with that, we normally like to see a fertilizer program once every quarter, so the change of the seasons is a good general time from which to apply fertilizer. Again, if you’re in a high growth area, your plant’s going to tell you whether it’s running out of fertilizer. If it’s a bit crunchy underfoot, doesn’t look like the normal green color you got it when you bought it, it means that you’re probably under-doing it on one of those two items.
So when it comes to caring for your lawn remember LAWN.