People try to find the quickest way to treat and care for their lawn grass. It is quite normal that in winter, most of the lawn grasses get dormant. You can see dried lawn grass spots too. To prevent such things and treat their lawn, they want shortcuts.
Market non-organic fertilizers may be harmful to dogs and humans, weed controllers can also kill the lawn grass with the weeds, and unhealthy soil is some result of shortcuts. Sometimes these things work but in longer terms, they are not helpful because they can create a habit of the lawn for using such things.
Here, you can understand the role of organic treatment of lawn and care naturally.
Organic lawn grass treatment in the USA
Let's start our understanding with the question of why we need an organic way to treat and care for our lawn grass.
Why we should treat lawn grass naturally?
Although there are some faster ways to get quick growth of the lawn grass they are not effective in longer terms. Usage of chemical fertilizers decreases the natural immunity of the soil.
- Better soil health and immunity
Organic fertilizers are good for soil regeneration. They get to mix with the soil and decomposed with it to increase fertility. They remain mixed with the soi and increase natural fertility slowly.
Organic fertilizer increases soil immunity as well to fight soil diseases and pest prevention.
- Healthy lawn grass
Organic lawn treatment help to grow healthy lawn grass throughout the year(except in winter). It also supports grasses to get their roots stronger with the soil.
- Non-harmful for animals and human
Sometimes, a chemical used to treat lawns may affect animal and human health too. Many chemical fertilizers and weed controllers are harmful t both animals and humans.
Organic fertilizers are unharmful for animals and humans. It supports lawn grass during heavy walking traffic.
- Eco-friendly
Organic ways of treating lawns naturally are harmless for the environment and eco-friendly.
They encourage the natural ecosystem even after human interference.
- No need for regular fertilizatiion
With regular usage of chemical fertilizers and weed controllers, lawns become used to it. It increases the overall cost of lawn treatment.
With organic fertilizers and weed controllers, lawns become naturally fertile and ideal for lawn grass after a period. It recovers the natural soil fertility after a few years.
So in the future, you can ignore regular fertilization of lawn grass and stick with natural soil fertility. Although it can take a couple of years and till, you have to use organic fertilizers at an interval.
Requirements for lawn treatment organically
Organic fertilizers
Organic waste material compost, chicken manure, and cow manure are good organic fertilizers. These composts are easy to make and store for a longer period.
For lawn grass, your compost must be 100% decomposed, with 10 to 20% moisture, and should have the least percentage of ammonia.
Organic weed controller
Although there are not many options for organic weed controllers, still we can use organic herbicides and organic vinegar to control weeds on the lawn.
Lawn treatment tools
Either you treat your lawn naturally or by using market chemicals, you need some specific tools for various lawn care processes. Following are the tools required for the lawn treatment-
- Long handle sharp metal reck(weeding and scratching)
- Long handle plastic reck(for collecting)
- Aerator machine
- Mowing machine
- Seed spreader
- Fertilizer spreader
How do treat and care for lawns organically?
Scratch the dormant grass before aeration
On the dormant spots in ideal growing conditions, you should scratch the lawn grass before aeration and overseeding. For this, you can take a long handle scratching reck and scratch the dormant areas till you see the soil surface.
Now, clean the scratched dormant grass and you can start aeration, overseeding, and fertilization.
Aeration
To transfer organic materials, for better absorption, maintain the air in the soil, and to release soil stress, we use aeration.
You can do it manually if you have a small lawn area. For this, you can use long handle aerator reck tool. You have to make deep holes at a closer distance in the soil.
If you have a big lawn, you can do it by aerator machines. For that, set the depth in the machine and without much effort, you can aerate your lawn.
Most of the time, 3 to 5 inches deep aeration holes are very effective. More than that, it depends on the depth of the particular grassroots.
Use of organic fertilizer
Fully decomposed moderate Nitrogen and carbon ratio compost is the best organic fertilizer for the lawn. It increases overall soil health and improves grass growth in the lawn.
There are regular composting timings to treat and care for lawn grass. First composting starts the first time sowing native grass on the lawn. Second composting starts on a regular period of 30 days in summer. There is a last composting in autumn. The next composting or fertilization starts in the spring after the winter season.
Each time, you can treat dormant spots by using compost but avoid composting in winter.
Don't use fresh compost on the lawn or unfinished compost otherwise they can burn your lawn grass. Too wet compost is not good for the lawn grass as well.
Choose a native lawn grass
Bermuda grass, Zoysia grass, St Augustine grass, and Bluegrass are some grasses that can grow in lawns in the USA.
Some of these grasses are native and some are foreign grasses. Bermuda, Zoysia, and St Augustine are warm climate grasses and bluegrass is cold climate grass.
If you take care of these grasses properly, then you can get a healthy and perfect lawn with beautiful grass.
But will all the knowledge and information about all the ideal grasses in climate-friendly conditions, you must aware of hybrid and pure seed quality. Sometimes, hybrid seeds give good results but most of the time, you should go with pure lawn grass seeds. But still, for a better lawn look, you can go with multiple types of grasses but you have to divide the area and restrict the particular grasses in their growing areas.
Overseeding
After the aeration, to treat and recover the dormant and dead spots in the lawn, overseeding is a good idea. It increases the overall turf thickness and germinates new grass on empty and dormant spots.
As primary germination, the best time for overseeding is the autumn and spring season. After the germination, you can apply the same fertilization to the entire lawn.
Regular mowing
Mowing helps lawn grass to get effective sunlight. Long grass reduces the light to go deeper into the grass. Tall lawn grass is easy to hide for snakes too. Without mowing, your lawn looks ugly and unmanaged. The uneven length of the lawn grass and blank spots doesn't indicate a good sign for the overall health of the lawn.
Every particular kind of lawngrass demands a different height and period of mowing. Sometimes, you have to mow your lawn every week but sometimes, you have to mow on 10 to 12 days intervals.
Regular weeding and weed control naturally
Weeding is as important as fertilization. If you don't control weeds from your lawn, it can affect the growth of lawn grass.
There are several reasons for weeds on the lawn. Hybrid seeds, climate conditions, soil nature, seed mixture, and unnecessary moisture. Most of the time, people choose shortcuts to control weeds from the lawn. They use market weed controllers. Though they control weeds at a limit without accuracy and backup, it is risky to use them. Sometimes, they burn the lawn grass with weeds.
If you have a small lawn, then it is better to do manual weeding on your lawn.
But be careful with the identity of all the weeds. These weeds may be Crabgrass, Dandelions, Quackgrass, Nut Sedge, Moss, Bindweed, and White Clover.
The basic step to overcoming the weed is to clean them directly with the roots. Weed mowing is useless.
In bigger lawns, people can use organic lawn weed controllers and herbicides.
Lawn moisture control
More or less than required irrigation is not good for overall lawn health. Long time low moisture cause dormant of the lawn grass and a long time over moisture invite moss than invade lawn grass.
People can't calculate how much moisture their lawn grass required. Irrigation timings and level decisions are based on lawn grass nature and climate conditions.
To overcome the problem of overmoisture on the lawn, it is better to make either slightly sloppy lawns or to install a drainage system on the lawn. Ideally, 10 degrees angle is good for the lawn slope to drain extra water from the lawn surface. But the fencing walls of the lawn must be very strong and deeper.
Sunlight access
Most of the native USA lawngrass like direct sunlight but some grasses are winter grasses. If you try to grow the wrong climate and odd-season lawn grass then high chances are that grass will not grow properly.
Even in ideal conditions, lawn grass growth may get affected by less sunlight. So don't let the shed on the lawngrass. Many times, lawn trees and shrubs cover the areas of lawn grass and it makes dormant spots on the lawn. To access the sunlight in dark areas, you can start pruning your lawn trees and shrubs.