Do you have a new lawn? If so, then you should know what the keys to maintaining the health of your grass.

New lawn care involves three main components: water, mowing and traffic.

Water

New lawns should be watered daily during their first few weeks. This is crucial in new lawn care. Daily watering will help the roots to get established. Keep the turf very moist. If you are experiencing a drought in your area, or if you live in a very hot climate, you may need to water your new lawn twice a day.

While the key to new lawn care requires keeping the turf moist, you should not over water your new lawn to the point where it is a wet, muddy mess. Try to not saturate the soil. If puddles are forming in your lawn, you are watering too much. Too much water in the soil can keep the roots of your new grass from achieving deep roots.

If your grass starts to take on a gray color, it is telling you that it is not getting the water it needs. A quick way to see if your lawn is getting enough water is to use a knife or screwdriver to dig into the soil. The dirt should be damp to a depth of six inches.

Once your new lawn has passed the two week time period, you can reduce watering to two or three times per week. How often you water your new lawn at this stage will depend upon your environment. A new lawn in a dry climate or in an area that is experiencing significant drought may need to be watered four or five times per week.

Mowing

New lawn care guidelines for sod state that a first mowing can occur within three weeks of planting.

New lawn care guidelines for seeded lawns state that it may be eight weeks before a mowing is needed.

Another key component to maintaining the health of your new lawn is to never mow your grass unless it is dry. Mowing on new, wet grass can pull the newly rooted grass out of the soil.

Never scalp your new lawn grass. It is better for your new lawn grass to be a little high than to be too short. By allowing your new lawn grass to grow a little high before cutting it will ensure that the grass is well rooted and established before it undergoes the trauma of a lawn mower blade.

Traffic

You should try to limit the amount of traffic on your new lawn during the first few weeks after planting. While it is unnecessary to keep all traffic off of your new lawn, traffic should be kept to a minimum. You will not want your children riding bikes or playing ball on your new lawn grass.

A lawn that is not protected from high traffic can be damaged and die. Friction on the new grass can pull up newly established roots that are still weak. Reducing friction is important in new lawn care.

Such pests also assist in avoiding fungal infection and help in physical maintenance like raking and effective mowing.  It is very helpful that your plants are protected against any kind of infection or damage arising from unwanted pests and bacteria.  Most of the time such pests and bacteria are responsible for decreasing the quality of the yield produced in your garden. Some other natural tillers that are present to help us mix seeds into the soil are earthworms. They enhance the yield and also help in tilling the soil of your garden.  These natural tillers are easy to get in the market and are very helpful in maintaining your garden and you don’t have to pay them.

Organic lawns are preferred more because of their capacity to add to the biodiversity. It is very easy to apply compost to your lawn using the wheelbarrow. You can also use a push broom to spread it across your lawn. Compositing is very helpful for your lawn as the soil is provided with essential nutrients and minerals that help in the increasing the yield and production of various flowers and plants.

Preparing turf is also very easy. It is very helpful and healthy for the soil of your lawn. The turf must contain various bugs and beneficial microorganism that will not just enhance the quality but will protect various crops and plants from other microbes that cause disease into them.

The fungi and bacteria are the beneficial microorganisms that are found in good quantities in finished compost.  There are two different ways in which you can get benefit from compost. It is full of beneficial bacteria, which makes soil mineral rich. In order to settle the compost you will have to prepare the ground of the garden one-day before and must apply it after the grass is established on it.  And you must plan for a new lawn and must see that the topsoil is covered with at least 4 inches of compost in order to provide your garden with all the necessary vitamins, nutrients and minerals.

Organic lawns our preferred to those using fertilizers and pesticides because they are natural and you do not have to worry about handling chemicals and the damage that they cause to the health of the people around.

The first thing you have to do in regards to new lawn watering is to find out if there is any water restriction in your town. If there are water restrictions, find out what they are in detail.

The best time to water during a draught is in the morning. This will keep your water from evaporating due to high wind and temperature. Many people who live in a drought region invest in an automatic watering system. This will ensure new lawn watering without having to get out of bed before the roosters.

You should probably avoid using overhead sprinklers during the day. Over half of the water put out by these sprinklers will be lost. A method for new lawn watering during the afternoon that is very productive is soaker hoses. Invest in soaker hoses and run them throughout your yard.

When you do water, try to water less often but water deeply. Water needs to go to a depth of six inches. If you water often but not deep, the bottom soil will not stay moist.

Be mindful of any leaks you may have in your watering system. This is a good practice, especially if you are under water restrictions in your area. Slow leaks can amount up to hundreds or thousands of gallons of lost water every month.

In the chance that you do get rain, have your gutters set up so the water is diverted to your new lawn.

If you are just starting a new lawn and preparing the soil, you should add organic matter that will aid in water retention. You should also probably think about sowing a grass seed that is draught resistant.

Slow down your fertilization routine during the draught times. Fertilizers promote growth which means you will have to water more often. 

Instead of using weed killers during the draught times, you may need to manually pull them out of your lawn, or simply cut them off at the surface.

Leave your lawn clipping on the grass. They can add moisture to your lawn.

If you are restricted from watering your lawn, you should simply let it go dormant. It will come back to life when water conditions improve. However, you should not mow grass when it is going dormant and not growing.

Avoid applying pesticides during times of draught, if possible. Pesticides can cause burns and injuries to grass that may require extra new lawn watering.

Ethical or green lawn and garden items would be products that do not harm the environment. You won’t want to eat them, but they are natural things that are not chemically processed. Think of it as organic gardening and lawn care. If you choose vegetables and fruit at the store that are organic, it would be a natural choice for you to use ethical products to care for your lawn and to grow vegetables that you are going to eat and feed to your family. Things won’t be as perfect as they seem to be with other products, but you don’t worry about chemical poisons this way.

First, think of fertilizer as it use to be. In the past, the best fertilizer was animal waste. Farmers still use this method with great results. Waste is absorbed back into the earth and is full of great stuff that makes plants grow big and strong. The problem can be the smell. Look for organic fertilizer in your local home stores. Check the labels to be sure that all of the ingredients in these lawn and garden products are indeed natural and things that you feel comfortable using in your garden. Remember to wash all things well that you are going to eat, as you normally would.

When it comes to pesticides, you probably use these lawn and garden products for a very good reason. Pests can destroy your lawn and can wipe out a garden on a bad year. You can get organic products that can help you with this and you won’t have to worry about what you are putting into the earth and into your body. These are probably not going to work quite as well as the chemical versions, but they are better for everyone over all. The losses you have are much better than eating chemicals.

If you want to feel good about what you eat and about what you are walking on, organic lawn and garden products should be things that you can feel good about. At times they don’t work quite as well and may cost a little more, but you won’t think twice about putting your child down to crawl through the grass when you know it is chemical free. Not only are you doing yourself a favor, you are protecting your small part of the earth. If more and more people do that, there may be hope for turning things around after all.

Weeds take over a lawn by spreading their seeds around. Pre-emergent weed killer works by making sure that the seeds of lawn weeds don’t ever sprout. As the weed seeds lie in your soil through the winter months waiting for the temperature to be right again, come spring, you have a pretty great window of time in which to attack them. Applying pre-emergent weed killer at this time takes away the ability of the seeds to germinate. You can apply a weed seed killer in one of two ways. You can either use a liquid topical treatment or you could use emergent weed killer that comes pre-mixed with fertilizer. To do a good job here, you need to read your instructions carefully and follow them.

To apply pre-emergent weedicide correctly, you need to pick the right time. Using it too early can render it useless by not giving the weed seeds enough time to break down, and applying it too late can cause the weed seeds to sprout before any damage is done to them. The best time usually is around May, when spring is just starting out. That’s about the time when the soil is about 60 degrees – just the right temperature to kill lawn weeds in.

If sticking a thermometer in the soil seems like too much work, perhaps pre-emergent weed killer isn’t for you. You could easily get the timing wrong. Remember, this is a product that kills seeds. If you plan to be seeding your lawn with grass seeds, it will kill those too. For the best results, you should probably buy premixed weed killer and use it through a sprayer. If you buy the kind that you mix yourself, it can be a lot of needless hassle, and of course, you could get the proportion all wrong. And remember, weedicide is poison. You need to follow all instructions completely.

There are times when lawn brown spots are easily avoided. If you have pets, you can not allow them to use your lawn for a bathroom. If you do, you have to clean up after them right away. If you wait and clean up once a week, you are going to have brown spots all over your lawn. It can be a pain to clean up after them right away, but that is sometimes the only way you can save your lawn. If you notice others allowing their dogs to go in your yard without cleaning up, remind them that they are trespassing and that the law in most areas requires they clean up after them immediately or risk fines.

Lawn brown spots can also occur because of disease or other problems that cause grass to grow awkwardly or not at all. Sometimes you entire lawn can be effected, but more often than not you find brown patches that seem to resit growing when the grass nearby is healthy and deep green. It could be that there is simply not enough rain and your lawn is struggling, allowing only some to appear healthy. If that is not the issue, you may want to call someone in to look for bugs or disease that could be affecting your lawn.

In order to fix lawn brown spots, you have a few choices. You first have to eliminate the problem. Once you have decided what is wrong and made the changes that you need, you can wait to see if your lawn comes back on its own or you can see about spot planting grass seeds in the fall in hopes that it comes back the next year. You can also try to cut out the spots and add already grown sod that can fill in the spots if the rest of your lawn is lush. You should know which choice is best by the condition of the rest of your lawn. You don’t want the new spots to stick out, but rather, to blend in well.

If your lawn brown spots are spreading around and it seems that in no time your entire lawn is going to be a big brown mess, perhaps you can see about having the entire thing redone. This is not a cheap endeavor, but if you take pride in your lawn and money is not a problem, this may be what you need to start over with a clean and sharp looking lawn. You can again choose between reseeding or full grown sod that rolls out and is a lush lawn in a few shorts days to a week.