Category: General Lawn Care

To grow a healthy lawn or a productive garden, it’s important to keep your soil pH within the recommended range. If your soil is too acidic, you can raise the pH by adding lime, wood ash, or oyster shell meal. To lower the pH of alkaline soil, you can add sulfur-based soil amendments.

Knowing how to care for new grass can help you achieve a lush lawn. You must properly water, mow, fertilize, prevent weeds, and avoid foot traffic.

The one-third rule of mowing says to take off no more than one-third of the grass blade per mow. Explore why it’s important and the benefits to your lawn.

If you have a healthy lawn, test your soil every three to five years during spring or early fall. If your lawn is struggling, test any time of year.

You should test the soil pH of your lawn to check that it’s balanced, rule out pH issues on a struggling lawn, and track pH changes after adding amendments.

The signs of alkaline soil in your lawn include discolored grass, poor growth, thinning turf, ineffective fertilization, and an increase in diseases and weeds.

The signs of acidic soil in lawns include yellow or brown grass, slow growth, ineffective fertilization, dying grass, and more diseases and weeds.

Understanding the difference between organic vs synthetic fertilizers will help you make the best decision for your landscape. Learn more here.

You can safely apply lime and fertilizer to your lawn at the same time, but use lime only if a soil test recommends it, and apply it properly.