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When you purchase a home in North America, there is a good chance that you are also purchasing the pleasure, or the burden, of maintaining a lawn. It is remarkable fact that despite having very little actual knowledge about how lawns grow, on any given week during the growing season, literally millions of homeowners are going to be caring for their lawns in some way. They'll be mowing or fertilizing or watering or otherwise trying to maintain or improve the lawn that came with the house. If you think about it, when comes to maintaining your home there is probably nothing as demanding and time consuming as lawn care. So if you have to do it anyway, why not do it right and get the pleasure of having a really beautiful lawn?
To do things right, you need enough basic lawn care information to allow you to think for yourself on the subject. Once you know a little bit about how grass actually grows and what makes a good or bad soil, you'll be able to make the right decisions. You'll know when and how high to cut, and why. You'll know how to water too. There is no magic formula that gives everyone, everywhere a great lawn. Lawns are an assemblage of millions of individual plants that really are trying to survive, under diverse conditions and, perhaps, despite poor care. Once you know your basics, you'll know what to do to help your grass thrive. You'll be surprised at how clear the subject becomes.
It is a cause and effect world and this applies to lawns too. We are not going to focus on lawn problems (effect), but we will look at what may be causing them and how to safely handle them when possible. Many lawn problems are simply symptoms of poor soil or growing conditions, or just poor lawn care practices over the years. But, if things have progressed too far and the only possible thing you can do to save your lawn is apply a chemical pesticide, we certainly aren't going chastise you for that or even for spot-treating things chemically. What we do ask is that you change your lawn practices so you can try to prevent future need for those pesticides.
The emphasis is on learning what a healthy lawn is, and what you can do to make or keep your lawn healthy. For the most part, we will use a “natural” approach and will take a look at the many facets that go into creating a healthy lawn, including the soil it grows in. Let's call this “Holistic Lawn Care”.
My philosophy of lawn care revolves around this statement:
" A healthy lawn growing in a good soil will have good color, will crowd out many weeds and will be highly resistant to disease and insects."
Note, I did not say it will crowd out all weeds and it will never have insects and disease. But, with the right grass type(s), the right care and in good growing conditions you can probably keep out most weeds and other problems. That's my observation, and the observation of many lawn pros who have done natural/organic lawn care extensively.
In the posts to follow, you are going to learn how grass grows, the importance of good soil and what you can easily do to get and keep your lawn and soil healthy. And you'll find out that everything you probably already do -mow, water, fertilize- can have a positive or negative effect on your lawn's health depending on whether it is done the right way, or the wrong way.
So, lets learn about lawns.
Stuart Franklin is President of Nature’s Lawn & Garden, Inc. (http://www.natureslawn.com) which sell online products, and Green Buffalo Lawn Care www.greenbuffalolawncare.com) a lawn fertilizing company serving the Buffalo, NY area He is also the author of Building A Healthy Lawn: A Safe and Natural Approach (Storey Publications 1988), available through our office. [email protected] 716-681-7796.
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