Every spring I am excited to have the snow melt off my lawn. I am then shown the reality of spring lawn care. This blog will walk you through the importance of spring lawn care so that you will have a healthy green lawn all season.
This photo shows my lawn in mid March. The snow has just melted leaving a mess of thatch. Thatch should be removed every spring because it harbors disease and insects. Dethatching can be done with a Power Rake like this one. Rent one for about $60 dollars a day. This will save you lots of time.
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Be careful to set the Lawn rake to the proper depth. The rake should be into the dirt below the thatch layer. Healthy grass will have extensive root systems. The lawn rake should comb this grass without removing this grass. If grass is coming up in clumps this is ok. In diseased lawns, the root system has become weak and shallow. The rake will remove this grass completely from the dirt bed.
I like to run the rake in 2 directions, one perpendicular to the other, then use a hard rake to pile the thatch and bag it.
After raking out the thatch, reseed areas where heavy thatch damaged lawn. Next fertilize using Scotts Turf Builder. Lawns in Montana should be fertilized at least 4 times during the summer.
I have about 10,000 sf of commercial lawn that I did while conducting this blog. This process took me about 13 hours to complete. Dethatching should be done every year to prevent build up and eventual disease.
Stay tuned to my blog for more Do It Yourself help. Next time I will show you how to control weeds in your lawn.