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There are a lot of good reasons to maintain a healthy and strong yard. You want to do it because you have pride in your home and if your yard is green and lush and has been well maintained, you can have people over and really let your home become a showcase for entertaining. You may be preparing your home for sale and it must look its best. Or you might have no other ulterior motive to growing a healthy lawn than the joy that being surrounded by a lush green carpet that is bursting with life brings. But there are some maintenance items to take care of to make sure you keep that stand of grass well fertilized and free of disease and weeds.
The actual step of putting out fertilizer on your yard is far from difficult. Fertilizer is sold in many easily accessible retail outlets from your local hardware store to a nursery to even your grocery store or Wal-Mart. The lawn experts at your greenhouse can make sure you match your goals with the fertilizer you buy and that you buy enough but not too much. Then it is just a matter of spreading it evenly on your lawn and watering it in and you are all set.
There are things you can do not only to make the fertilizer more effective but to provide natural support to your lawn so it draws it’s nutrients from the environment. Aerating the soil once a year is a way to open up the soil so not only is there more room around the soil for the movement of worms and other necessary life forms but air and water can get into the soil which makes it richer and more supportive of the grass above.

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Also, put a priority on raking and keeping the soil under your grass free of debris, leaves, sticks and other things that fall into any normal yard. This miscellaneous clutter makes it more difficult for your grass to spread plus anything foreign in your lawn introduces potential for disease. By doing a thorough raking of your yard before fertilizing, you open the soil up so the fertilizer can easily be watered into the soil where it can get to the roots of your grass easily. This one step alone can increase the effectiveness of your fertilizer tremendously.

The more you do to make every inch of your ground smooth, clean and ready for fertilizer, the better each application of nutrients will perform for you. Its a worthwhile habit to walk down your property and fill in any holes with good topsoil and add seed where bare spots occur before fertilizing. Then with diligent watering, your lawn will fill in full and lush because you used the unbeatable combination of good fertilizer and tender loving care.

Finding ways to apply the principles of living green and in harmony with the environment isn’t always easy. That is because over the decades, we have come to depend on chemicals for so many things. From washing our clothes and cars to killing weeds in the yard, there is a chemical product for just about everything. So if you want to go organic even in your lawn care, it is going to take some adjustments and some getting used to.
One basic adjustment might mean a fundamental change to what we see as a “weed”. Many of the “pests” that we always fought in our yards actually produce lovely blooms in a natural state. Dandelions are an example of a “weed” whose only crime is not being grass. But the dandelion produces a lovely flower that many of us associate with the coming of spring and summer.
That said, you no doubt will have some objectives with your yard that include elimination of some weeds or objectionable vegetation. One great way to battle unwanted life is simply to give superpowers to the life you want out there and that is your grass. There are a number of organic recipes for fertilizing your lawn that you can use even before your grass springs to life each year. By getting on a regular program of fertilizing and maintaining your yard, your grass will have all it needs to become strong, resilient, and able to resist disease and even battle weeds directly.
Grass is notoriously greedy for land. That is one of the things we like about it. So if you do your part to make your grass strong and ambitious, it will crowd out weeds. By also maintaining a good mowing schedule, you will be giving your grass one more weapon to fight bad things that might compete for land, water and sunlight. Grass actually prospers when mowed whereas weeds are damaged by regular mowing. So that act of mowing which to you is just another step to make your lawn look good is also a very effective weed management program.
Of course, there is a very old fashioned method of weed control that has pretty much gone by the wayside in our new chemical driven world. It is tremendously effective, totally in step with the principles or living green and being one with the environment. And if it is done right, it can even be a family bonding event. That is just getting out there with hand held digging tools, shoves and rakes and pulling the weeds by hand.

Nothing kills a weed more effectively than being extracted from the earth root system and all. The remnants of the weeds can be disposed of in an environmentally friendly way and you get some exercise to boot. It might lead to some sore muscles every so often but one thing you have to say for the old fashioned of manual weed control in your yard and that is that its green and it works.