Lawn Care: Simple Maintenance Begets Beautiful Lawns
by Mary Hobson

Lawn care as a rule is a reasonably straight-forward affair, but it takes a simple but specific course of maintenance to ensure a lush, beautiful lawn. Here are nine tips to help keep your lawn vivid, hearty and healthy.

Lawn Care Cutting Hints

• You should cut your lawn when the grass is approximately one half-inch taller than the desired length you're seeking to maintain.
• Always cut the grass to the lawn's edge to reduce the necessity of trimming.
• In spring and autumn, leaving grass cuttings on your lawn can return 30% of the nutrients essential to your lawn.

Lawn Care Watering Tips

• Lawns should be watered in the hottest of summer to prevent drying grass, slow growth, and the propagation of deep-rooted weeds.
• To see if your lawn needs watering, step onto the grass--if it's flat and appears crushed, you should water.

Lawn Care Aeration Tips

• Lawns need to breathe. You should aerate your lawn in spring and autum to bring oxygen to the grass roots.
• For a simple do-it-yourself aeration, use a garden fork to make holes six inches deep, evenly spaced, in your lawn. If you have a larger lawn, aeration tools are available inexpensively at your lawn and garden store.

Lawn Care Scarification Tips

• In early spring be sure to scarify, or rake, your lawn to remove the thatch and other debris that has accumulated over the winter. This is also essential to tease your grass for the season's first cut.
• Scarify again at the end of autumn, to remove all grass cuttings and accumulated moss.