5 Simple Lawn Repair Tips to Remember for Spring

If you live in a snowy region and didn’t properly prepare your lawn for winter, chances are you’re too late for this year. Next year, you should be sure to rake and cut your lawn short before the snow falls. But even if your lawn may look a little less than ideal after the snow melts next spring, there are still plenty of strategies that can get it back on track quickly. Here are five simple lawn repair tips that can help your grass get (and stay) greener next year:

1. Diagnose Problems Correctly

   Before you commence buying fertilizers and other products, rule out any big problems like vole infestations, grubs or fungi. All the lawn repair tips in the world won’t help you if you don’t eradicate these problems first. There are many specific reasons your lawn might be doing poorly (and difficulty figuring out which reason is exactly why professional lawn repair services exist), but starting off with no guidance is like a doctor treating a disease without making a diagnosis.

2. Take Care of the Soil

   One of the most common reasons lawns do poorly is that they’re not getting the nutrients they need from the soil. If you can’t find an obvious cause for your lawn’s malaise, get a soil test. You might find that the pH is off. If your ground is hard-packed, you may also need to aerate the soil.

3. Use the Right Grass Blend

   If there’s nothing wrong with your soil and your grass is still sickly, take a look at the requirements of the grass blend you’re using. Often, people who are inexperienced in landscape planting will ignore the sun needs of certain varieties. If you’re using a blend that needs more sun than your outdoor areas get, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

4. Expect to Overseed

   While proper care can help your lawn to come back strong each year, it’s normal to overseed certain varieties in order to get a lush lawn (basically every golf course overseeds). This is simply the practice of evenly spreading new grass seed over an existing lawn. It’s normally done in the fall, though a few experts recommend overseeding in the spring.

5. Install Appropriate Hardscaping

   Here’s some lawn repair advice that has nothing to do with grass: Take advantage of hardscaping options to take some pressure off your lawn. Not only can having non-lawn areas mean that you’ll have less grass to worry about, appropriate hardscape walkways and patios will direct traffic away from your grass. Furniture or heavy foot traffic (especially when the grass is frozen) can lead to brown spots.

Do you have any other lawn repair tips to share? Join the discussion in the comments.