Lawn envy is a real thing. Does it always seem like the grass is always greener at your neighbor’s house? Why can’t you get that perfect emerald green expanse of beauty working for you?
When your lawn is green and lush, it shows that you are dedicated to caring for your property. However, it’s hard work and there’s a lot that you should know. Here in Central Florida, if you allowed anything to grow on your property it would resemble the natural jungle that Florida looks like when it’s untamed. Most of that growth would look like the weeds that we normally pull out of our lawn. Having a lush, green lawn that isn’t designed to thrive in our natural landscape requires the right soil conditions, with the right nutrients and properly aeration.
The truth is to achieve the yard of your dreams takes a lot of work. But it’s not necessary to do all of that work yourself. When you hire the right landscaping consultant they can help you to achieve your landscape desires. They can help making sure that weeds don’t take over your lawn and are promptly removed. They can make sure that your soil is in optimal shape to accommodate your lawn. Here are six of the main problems that we see in yards that aren’t as healthy as they could be.
Vitamin Deficiency
Just like our bodies, your lawn needs to have the proper vitamins to get healthy and stay healthy. Not only does your lawn need water and sun, they need the proper nutrients to really thrive. This doesn’t just happen naturally, after all if you did nothing your lawn would die off and be replaced by a Florida jungle. So, we need to make sure we supplement our yard. The key to a healthy yard is Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium. You’ll see most fertilizers listed with NPK ratios. That’s the mix you’re looking for. Because we’re in Florida and the summers are hot, you should make sure you use long-lasting fertilizers as they will continue feeding your lawn all summer long.
Central Florida Soil Composition
The Orlando area has unique challenges; our soil contains a lot of sand. What this means is that if your soil isn’t properly prepared it will not provide the optimal results for a good lawn. You should have your soil professionally tested to find out its composition so that you can identify any issues.
Soil pH
pH measures the acidity of your soil. It’s pretty easy to get your soil tested. You need to make sure that your soil is in the right range. The natural pH of Orlando area soil runs around 6.1 which is slightly acidic. However, on occasion you can find soil that dips below 6. For the best results for most lawns you’ll want to make sure that your pH is between 6.5-7. A lime application will help to raise the pH of your lawn to get it prepared for a lush lawn. St Augustine grass which grows best in shaded areas will grow down to a pH of 5.
One of the biggest causes of low pH that we see is over aggressive fertilization with a sulfur or nitrogen based fertilizer. There’s a delicate balance between giving your yard the nutrients you need and keeping the pH optimal.
Fungus Issues
I think we all know that it can rain a lot in Florida. What happens when the grass stays too wet for too long is that fungus problems can occur. Usually the sun can dry out the rain before it becomes a problem so this is pretty rare, but can happen even here in sunny Florida.
Overaggressive Mowing
I know that it feels like cutting the grass low helps you to prevent mowing more often. The reality is that cutting the grass too low is a major factor in dry and brown grass. It makes your lawn less healthy. When you cut the grass blade too much that reduces the area on the grass leaf where the photosynthesis happens. If you cut too much you can damage the ability of the plant to maintain its root structure.
In the Orlando area, you want to keep the mowing length to between 3 and 3 ½ inches for a healthy lawn.
Compacted Soil
When the lawn gets too compacted, which means solid and inflexible, it causes issues with water and nutrients being able to reach the grass roots. This can happen if you’re not properly aerating the lawn or if there’s a lot of foot traffic on the lawn. You can fix this by doing proper lawn aeration where you methodically pull out plugs of grass, soil and roots to that the lawn can breathe. These cores will break down and be reabsorbed into the lawn. This breaks down the thatch and reduces the soil compaction.
As you can see there are plenty of reasons why your lawn might have an issue, it really helps to have a landscaping professional there to help you.