Do you ever wonder why, no matter what you do, to have a nice lawn it never seems to work? You think you’re doing everything right by fertilizing, watering, mowing and it always seems to fail. You may even pay a lawn care company to service your lawn but it never seems to look as nice as the lawn down the street.  

There are a lot of variables that come into play to have the perfect lawn. The most important factors are the selection of grass used for the growing environment and the conditions of the soil that the grass is growing in.

Every season I get calls from homeowners who want to have a nice lawn and they think hydroseeding is the answer. When all else fails hydroseed will grow anywhere! You see it on the side of the road; it is even growing up the telephone pole.

This is true: hydroseed will grow on anything as long as it gets moisture and sun. But, it’s what happens once those new roots grow past the green mulch. If the soil that those roots are growing down into is not suitable for sustaining life of a new grass plant, it will soon die.

The same principle goes for sod. You do not want to transplant sod from the most favorable growing conditions to your depleted soil that has little or no nutrients.  Turf also needs to be planted in full sun for Kentucky bluegrass to look its best.

Take some time this spring and look around your yard and see how the growing environment may have changed over the years. Maybe you have trees that have grown much larger and your lawn might not be getting the sunlight it use to get. Trees will filter out the sunlight, shed water away from the grass underneath and steal nutrients from the soil that your lawn really needs.  Moss is usually a good indicator that not enough light is making it through which will cause an unfavorable moist growing environment for the lawn. Trees can also make your soil more acidic which can make any lawn care program a waste of money. If your soil pH is not in the range of 6.3 to 6.5, you’re throwing money away on fertilizer. Nutrients are tied up in the soil and not released or available to the plant unless the soil is just slightly acidic.

So my advice to anyone who calls me and wants a new lawn or to improve their existing lawn is to start with a soil test. Always Green provides this service in conjunction with the University of Massachusetts soil testing lab. We will provide you with a comprehensive report that is easy to follow to improve your soil conditions.

A soil test is recommended every three years. When we come out to your property to perform this test we also evaluate your lawn and the growing environment, we also answer any questions that you may have. We will randomly collect several plugs of soil throughout your yard; this will give us an overall average for the soil analysis. This will also show us the soil structure (sand, loam, clay), thatch layer and if there are any rocks or debris in the soil that may be affecting your grass.

Another thing to consider as well is the age of your lawn. If your lawn is more than 10 years old you may want to consider introducing newer varieties of grass or renovating your lawn. There are always better cultivars of turf grass being developed that are more disease resistant, drought tolerant and have good insect resistance.

To learn more about a cost effective way to have a new lawn or improve your existing lawn visit us at: www.AlwaysGreenRI.com