4 Low-Maintenance Lawn Care Tips for Busy Northeast Ohio Families

You want your lawn to be the talk of the town for all the right reasons, but with family obligations, job responsibilities, and endless housework, pampering your lawn always falls to the bottom of your priority list.

Not to mention the unpredictable weather that can sometimes wreak havoc on your grass.

However, caring for your lawn doesn’t have to be stressful—or time-consuming. With a few low-effort time-saving lawn care tricks, you can achieve a lush, green lawn and still spend more time playing in your yard than working on it.

Let’s take a look at five low-maintenance lawn care tips to keep your lawn looking green.

4 Low-Maintenance Lawn Care Tips

If you’re looking for time-saving lawn care tips, you’re in luck.

In between treatments by your local lawn care technicians, there are a few practices you can implement on your own.

1. Increase Your Mowing Height

If you mow your own yard, be sure to set your mower to a height of at least 3.5-4 inches. This will help encourage a deeper root system and allow the grass to hold more water. It also enables your lawn to be more resistant to insects and diseases and more tolerant of the droughts that can sometimes plague places like Mentor, OH, in summertime.

Additionally, if you’ve recently invested in aeration and overseeding services, keeping your mowing height high will help provide shade to the grass seed that’s recently been laid down.

If a contractor services your yard, it may be worth asking if they can raise the mower deck height when they take care of your property.

2. Mow More Frequently

It may seem counterintuitive, but if you mow more often, only cutting off a small amount of grass each time, your turfgrass suffers less stress than if you were to lob off huge amounts of grass every couple of weeks.

This goes hand in hand with increasing the mowing height in improving the health of your lawn.

3. Water Regularly

Another low-maintenance lawn care tip is to water regularly.

Even if the grass in your yard is well established, it’s crucial to water your lawn up to 2 inches each week in order to keep it healthy, especially during hotter months when heat stress and drought come about.

However, contrary to what some believe, you don’t need to water your lawn every single day. If you water your lawn about a half-inch at a time, three times a week, that should put you in the correct target.

To determine how much water your lawn is getting each time you water, place an open container within range of your irrigation system and document how long it takes for that container to fill up to a half-inch.

From there, you can set your sprinkler system to water for that specific amount of time. Just be sure to pay attention to rainfall totals, so you’re not overwatering your lawn.

Fun Fact: Watering your lawn during dry spells will help your lawn recover from heat and drought stress more quickly once temperatures do start to decrease come fall.

4. Mulch Your Clippings

Some people like to bag their grass clippings when mowing their lawn for aesthetic reasons, but it’s actually more beneficial to your lawn for that organic matter to return to the soil and decompose.

Just be aware that if you cut a lot off at a time, it may contribute to heavy clippings smothering out the lawn and allowing weeds to invade areas.

6 Lawn Care Services to Improve Your Results

While you take care of things like mowing at the proper height and frequency and watering the right amount, there are a few things you can do to go above and beyond. You can enlist the services of a lawn care company like Turf Pride to take care of the rest.

Investing in professional services will not only save you time, but it will also help prevent costly issues down the road.

Plus, all of the services are performed by trained and certified technicians, rendering them completely safe for your kids and pets.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of seasonal treatments offered by lawn care companies like Turf Pride.

1. Spring Fertilization

Fertilizing the lawn in the spring promotes healthy growth, allowing your yard to flourish all season long. It can also give your lawn the boost it needs to fend off potential threats including insects and diseases.  

2. Weed Control

The best way to stay one step ahead of weeds in your yard is by preventing them from being there in the first place.

While it’s possible to knock down weeds like crabgrass once it’s already taken hold in your lawn, it does become a lot more difficult to do so after the fact.

Pro Tip: Putting down more weed control products does not equate to better results.

3. Insect Treatments

Turf Pride Specialists are trained to diagnose insect activity and treat accordingly when found. Chinch bugs, billbugs, armyworms, and more have unique feeding characteristics. 

Your lawn will be inspected during every visit, another benefit to having a licensed specialist on the lawn throughout the season.

And remember, when you have fewer insects in your lawn, that also means the critters that go digging for them—such as raccoons and skunks—won’t be attending the nightly buffet in your yard.

4. Grub Control

Another treatment to consider early on in the season is grub control, especially if you’ve had issues in the past.

Grubs feed on the root systems of turfgrass, so if you notice areas within your lawn pulling up like carpet, it’s likely you have a grub problem on your hands.

As seasons change and the ground gets colder, grubs that are present in your yard will tunnel deeper into the ground, only to emerge again the following April or May. Damage during that time may be minimal, but as other elements like heat and drought stress out your lawn in the late summer months, grub damage will become more and more apparent.

A preventive treatment is not only more effective than a reactive one, but it also is a lot cheaper. A curative grub product is about 1.5 times more expensive than proactive control. So, why take the chance of grubs taking over your yard?

5. Aeration + Overseeding

The benefits of aeration and overseeding are numerous.

Aeration helps break up the thatch layer Pulling out plugs of soil from your lawn. This helps air, water, and nutrients reach the soil and improves the overall density of your yard. It can also help break up compaction within your soil.

From there, overseeding introduces new varieties of turfgrass to your lawn, thickening up your grass, filling in bare spots, and improving its overall health so that it can better resist insects and diseases.

Usually handled in the fall, these services are performed at the same time and make for a winning combo for your yard.

6. Fall Fertilization

Fall fertilization provides similar benefits as spring fertilization, but instead of promoting new growth, it sends energy to the root system, where it can be stored over the winter and used up next season.

This is particularly beneficial as temperatures get cooler because the lawn starts to divert energy from the grass blades to the root system anyway. And, at the end of the day, a healthy yard stems from a healthy root system.

Why Enlist A Northeast Ohio Lawn Care Provider

So, why enlist the services of a professional lawn care provider like Turf Pride?

Sure, you can perform the above services yourself, but our specialists at Turf Pride are licensed through the State of Ohio and the Department of Agriculture. We put down only the best products—ones that not only promote healthy growth but also are completely safe for your family.

Plus, our technicians have been thoroughly trained and know just the right amount of product to put down, so you’re not stuck guessing if you got it right. 

And, if you ever come across something in your lawn that doesn’t look quite right, they’re ready to jump in, answer your questions, and treat the underlying causes of the problem.

Therefore, having these types of services done for you not only gives you more time to do the things you love, but it also saves you the trouble of having to rent the equipment to put down the products, buy lesser-grade products, and safely store any products you don’t end up using.

Even better, many of the services listed above, like insect and weed control and fertilization, are bundled into one convenient lawn care package, saving you the trouble of having to figure out what’s best for your lawn.

Easy Lawn Care for Busy Families

If you’re ready to take your yard to the next level without spending entire weekends working in it and you’re located in the Northeast Ohio area, we’re here to help. Call today or request a free quote.