How to make a beautiful lawn on the site. Lawn: types, features, technology

Not so long ago, watching Hollywood movies, we envied the neat, well-groomed green grass in front of the house of almost every family. But in the countries of the former USSR, lawns could only be seen in parks and in front of the city administration. More recently, no one knew how to plant a lawn on their site: there was nowhere to find a guide, buy seeds and the equipment necessary for grass care. Today everything is different. The landscaping market is growing at a fast pace and provides a lot of opportunities to decorate your suburban area with a green carpet.

We bring to your attention step-by-step instructions on how to make a lawn in the country with your own hands.

Lawn types

There are two ways to arrange a lawn in the country with your own hands:

• the first is the old-fashioned way to plant a lawn with your own hands. This method is relatively cheaper. Especially if you do everything yourself and you have all the necessary equipment and tools.
• the second, so to speak, for the lazy, is to buy a finished coating in rolls. This is the fastest and neatest way to decorate your backyard with a green carpet. In fact, in one day (because the grass in rolls must be laid on the same day when it was delivered) you get a lawn in your summer cottage. This is not a cheap way. A turf lawn will last up to ten years.

Rolled lawn

You can calculate the required number of rolls after knowing the dimensions of the rolls sold and adding another 10% in reserve. Good signs:

• a normal rhizome system is if there are many white roots
• should have been trimmed very recently
• without spaces
• even color
• minimum weeds
• no stones in the soil
• same roll thickness
• free of fungi and pests

The base for a rolled lawn requires drainage. To do this, you need to remove the soil to a certain depth and lay rubble with sand in layers of 10 cm. Tamp everything. Return the soil back and level. The first roll will serve as your level, so be extra careful. Lay the rolls end to end.

Do not overlap the lawn and do not leave more than one cm between the strips. If you can’t fit the roll neatly, then it’s better to cut it.

Rolled lawn

Now be patient until the lawn takes root. This may take two weeks. All this time the grass needs to be watered.

Self growing lawn

Today we will talk about how to make a lawn in the country with our own hands and take care of it with our own hands, without involving specialists. First, let's figure out what types of lawn coverage are:

• Garden (park). This lawn can be safely called the most popular among summer residents, because it is the most affordable in terms of price and arrangement. Such a lawn is not afraid of walks, children's games and picnics. The composition of grass mixtures for planting a garden lawn includes unpretentious cereals that are not afraid of poor soil, shade, or vice versa, the scorching sun, frost and drought. A garden lawn can be used to decorate the area around the pool and in the recreation area.

garden lawn

• Sports. By the name it is clear that considerable loads fall on the share of the sports lawn. But he can easily deal with them. The sports turf is resistant to trampling, abrasion, but on the contrary it is quickly restored. The grass is low, hard and resilient, designed for sports (there are even subspecies of a sports lawn, such as a lawn for football, golf or tennis) and outdoor activities.
• Lugovoi. This is a natural, natural meadow, in which the necessary plants are simply added.
• Mauritanian. It is difficult to call it a lawn, because it does not require the usual haircut. Although it is still a worthy alternative to the usual lawn. Moorish lawns are sown with flowering herbs and therefore their role is exclusively decorative. In grass-sweepers for the Mauritanian lawn, the herbs are selected so as not to drown out each other, but rather alternate flowering.
• Parterre (English). The most spectacular and most impractical type of lawn. Requires constant care and does not tolerate trampling. Created only to decorate and enhance the beauty of buildings or sculptures.

And one more type of coverage, which stands apart from the entire list, because it is not grass either. This is artificial turf. What kind of animal is this? Artificial turf is a plastic or polymer coating that mimics natural grass. This coating is used in places where grass does not want to grow at all: under bushes, in parking lots, etc.

Choice of lawn grass

To understand how to properly make a lawn, let's figure out how to choose the right grass mixtures. It is very convenient to buy ready-made grass mixtures, because they are already equipped with varieties of cereals that are needed for planting a certain type of lawn. As we have seen, there are different requirements for grasses: the lawn must be resistant to trampling, or grow green quickly, or vice versa, slow growing. But, unfortunately, not everything is so simple. It happens that a mixture of grasses for a particular type of lawn is not suitable for growing in a certain climate. Then, perhaps, it is worth choosing only one type of herbs:

• Bluegrass meadow (Poa praténsis). During flowering, bluegrass can reach 80 cm, but during the growth period it will not rise above 20 cm. Bluegrass has a powerful root system that prevents weeds from developing. In addition, it is frost and heat resistant. A real universal soldier among cereal grasses. In the wild, it grows in meadows, fields and forest edges.

Bluegrass meadow (Poa praténsis)

• Fescue ( Festuca). This is also an unpretentious cereal. In the wild, it is found in meadows and forests, as well as in the mountain tropics. For the lawn, meadow fescue and red fescue are especially suitable.
• Timothy or Arzhan (Phléum). Used for lawns that are prone to trampling. Timothy grass meadow is best suited for lawns. Easily tolerates winters.
• Field (Agrostis). Grass rich green, looks good at low mowing and forms a dense grass cover.

Polevica (Agrostis)

• Ryegrass or chaff (Lólium). A perennial chaff is used for planting a lawn. It grows quickly and does not allow weeds to develop. Requires frequent trimming. He loves the sun and water, does not tolerate frost.

This information will help you figure out what kind of lawn you need on your site and how to make it neat and well-groomed.

How to plant a lawn with your own hands

An important step before planting is to determine the type of soil on the site. The lawn loves light soil. Dilute clay and heavy soil with sand. On clay soil, it is also more difficult to see how smooth the surface is. And there is also a chance that moss and fungi will be frequent guests.

The optimal pH value in the area is 5.5-7. Researchers use an acid meter or special indicators to determine soil pH. You can do it yourself with vinegar and grape juice in two ways:

• If the soil sample reacts with the vinegar, the pH is neutral (pH 7)
• If the color of the juice in which the soil sample is dipped changes and the surface of the juice bubbles, then the pH is neutral (pH 7)

If the figure is lower, then add calcium (crushed limestone works best) and phosphate fertilizers. Apply everything evenly and carefully mix with the ground.

Lawn - from weeds to seedlings (video)

If you have already decided on the composition of the seeds for planting and the paths and borders have already been equipped on the site, you can proceed directly to planting.

Step-by-step instructions on how to plant a lawn with your own hands:

• Clear the area of ​​debris, uprooted trees, shrubs.
• Dig the area by hand if it is not large. If not, use a walk-behind tractor. Try to select all the roots of weeds with a pitchfork or manually from the formed lumps of earth. Otherwise, in the first season there will be unpleasant guests on the lawn.
• If you spread any material (linoleum, roofing material, cardboard) on the dug-up soil at the end of summer, then the weeds will sprout under it by spring.
• Dig the soil in dry weather. After clearing the land of weeds, go through the walk-behind tractor again.
• Level the ground with a rake.
• Compact the soil with a roller.
• Now it's time for watering. And in those places where water accumulates, add earth. Loosen the ground again with a rake.
• Apply a complex mineral fertilizer specially designed for lawns.
• Mix the seeds in the package and sow sparingly so that a thick carpet grows.
• Press the seeds down with a roller and water with a fine spray hose.

That's all. There is nothing complicated about how to make a lawn in the country with your own hands, no. Next comes a no less important stage than landing. It's about proper lawn care.

Lawn care

One of the main components of lawn care is watering. Without watering, the grass will become brown, dry and covered with bald spots. How to water the grass to avoid this:

• Water your grass in the morning before the heat hits. During the day - only if there is no bright sun. In the evening, have time to water the lawn before 18:00 so that it dries. Otherwise, wet water will provoke the development of moss and various fungi.
• Rare, but plentiful watering can be considered optimal. During dry periods, water once every three days. Stop watering in the fall.
• Let the soil dry out between waterings to allow additional roots to form.
• In small areas (along a flower bed or path) or where it is inconvenient to water with a hose, use a watering can.
• If the lawn area is a couple of acres, then use a portable sprinkler. If we are talking about serious areas, then an automatic irrigation system will help you. Sprinklers in this case are located imperceptibly and do not interfere with movement at all. When water is supplied, the sprinklers rise.

The lawn needs regular mandatory watering

As for the equipment and tools necessary for care, they are used for their intended purpose, depending on the season.

spring

• At the end of April (after the snow has melted and the ground has dried out), comb the grass with a rake. Or a scarifier if the area is large. This will remove sluggish leaves, dry grass and moss.
• In May it was time for the first mowing. But don't cut too short so the grass will regenerate faster. Use a lawn mower. You can set the height on it.

Summer

• Make friends with a root remover (a hand-held garden tool that picks up weed roots with teeth and gently pulls them out) if you are against herbicides.
• To evenly distribute mineral fertilizer, use a seeder.

autumn

• That's who does not care about your efforts, so it's moles. Characteristic pyramids will disfigure any lawn if moles are not fought. An ultrasonic repeller helps with this.
• In November, aerate with a pitchfork (if the area is large, use an aerator) or special nozzles for shoes.

Lawn aeration with special shoe attachments

In order for your green lawn to buzz with colors and health, it definitely needs top dressing:

• If you please your lawn with fertilizers, then it will respond to you with resistance to drought and the appearance of weeds. Fertilizers affect the height of the plant and its color.
• Feed in summer and fall.
• Do not underestimate the recommendations that are written on the package. Otherwise, you will simply harm your grass.

It is clear that neatly sown green grass is much better than an overgrown area. Decorate the lawn with flower beds, rock gardens and enjoy the opportunity to enjoy the work of your hands.

Well-groomed grass in a summer cottage looks no less aesthetically pleasing than flower beds. In addition, if you do all the work on planting the lawn correctly, then in the future lawn care will be very simple. A beautiful lawn will not only become part of the decorative design of the site, but will also bring a lot of benefits. For a year, half a hectare of planted grass absorbs about 40 tons of dust, which means that you will breathe healthy air. The second plus is that the humidity will increase, which in the summer will help the owners to endure the heat more easily. Every summer resident can make a lawn with his own hands, because this does not require special equipment and in-depth knowledge of an agronomist. The main rule here is to do everything slowly and efficiently.

Prior to the start of earthworks, they are determined with the type of lawn. It is selected taking into account the further use of the grass area, because the arrangement of the lawn for outdoor games and for the patio area can radically differ in the quality and variety of cereals that make up the grass mixtures. There is, so before going to the store, clearly define what you need.

When buying a lawn mixture, read the instructions on the package, which indicates for what purposes such a lawn can be used.

It is sown in places where a playground, a children's area or a pet walking area is planned (for example, if someone breeds dogs). Sports mixtures include herbs that are not afraid of trampling, so over time your lawn will not appear "bald" spots. Such lawns are dense, hard and unpretentious. True, a stronger substrate is being built under them to avoid grass breaks.

English (parterre) lawn

This lawn is the exact opposite of a sports lawn. It is designed not for movement, but for contemplation. Mixtures are made up of expensive tender herbs that require good soil, constant care and shearing, are afraid of shady places and trampling. In the landscape, the English lawn looks very luxurious and expensive, but this is a purely decorative corner in which picnics and tea parties are excluded.

Along with beautiful aesthetic parameters, the English lawn is very delicate, demanding to care for and does not tolerate movement on it.

Garden lawn

Do-it-yourself gardening lawn in the country is the easiest to do. The cereals that make up its composition are unpretentious, tolerate both shade and scorching sunlight well, grow on poor soils. Therefore, for recreation areas, patios, areas near pools, this option is most often chosen.

Meadow (Moorish) lawn

If you like field forbs and meadows dotted with flowers, then choose this type of lawn. It will be a lawn blooming all summer with a bright palette of colors. You can create a mixture for a meadow lawn yourself by choosing plants so that they bloom alternately throughout the summer season.

An easier option is to buy ready-made, where herbs have already been selected that get along well together, do not drown out each other and are distinguished by bright colors. Naturally, such lawns are rarely mowed (only to remove faded plants and allow the next generation to germinate). But walking on them is not recommended, because high, about 10 cm grasses will be crushed underfoot and are unlikely to restore their former appearance.

Meadow lawns, especially Moorish lawns, are great for rustic landscaping styles and look naturalistic.

Universal lawns are created very quickly, because they use ready-made rolled grass strips. They are sold with turf and quickly take root in a new place. With the help of rolled materials, they equip any areas on the site in which movement is planned. As a decorative parterre lawn, this option is not suitable, because unpretentious hard grasses that do not have high aesthetic qualities are used for its cultivation. It should be borne in mind that such a lawn will cost you much more than sowing grass for a lawn, because rolled strips require special soil preparation and the ability to properly line them.

Rolled lawns are a universal type of lawns (albeit expensive!), on which you can create recreation areas, playgrounds

Rules for choosing a landing site

When dividing the landscape of the site into certain zones, keep in mind that not all lawn mixtures will grow equally well where you have allocated a place for them.

• So, the English lawn needs complete openness, the absence of shade and winds.
• Any grass will not grow normally in the area of ​​permanent shade, which is in the immediate vicinity of buildings.
• If you decide to sow a lawn under an orchard or ornamental trees, then within the crown radius, the lawn has little chance of survival. Firstly, most of the nutrition will be taken by the root system of more powerful trees. Secondly, the branches will give a large amount of shade that interferes with the processes of photosynthesis. As a result, the grass will have a pale appearance. You will either have to sacrifice the lower branches of the trees and cut them off, or refuse to plant grass in this place.
• If the summer cottage is located in a low-lying waterlogged area, then the roots of the grasses will constantly rot. The lawn does not like waterlogging, so you will have to make high-quality drainage. True, there are mixtures of herbs that grow even with stagnant water, but even they do not show a constant excess of moisture.
• If elevation changes are observed on the site, then at the transition points the soil is subject to erosion and leaching. You need to smooth the slopes so that their steepness does not exceed 30˚ and additionally reinforce with a mesh that will hold the soil, preventing it from crumbling.
• You should not make a lawn path in a place of constant movement of people and cars, for example, from the gate to the house. By trampling the same track every day, you will compact the earth so much that the grass will lose oxygen to the roots and “suffocate”. Even sports mixes will not work in this case, because they are designed for heavy traffic of people throughout the site, and not in one narrow lane. If the desire to keep the area green is so great, then lay strips of tiles or wooden chocks between the lawn so that you step on them, and not on the grass.

Features of proper sowing

It is desirable that the drawing up of a rough draft of your future lawn should take place in the winter. Then, with the beginning of spring, you will immediately begin earthworks. Lawn mixtures show the best survival rate in early spring, when the earth is saturated with moisture and there is no strong heat. If the moment is missed, then you should not sow the lawn in the summer. Wait until the autumn days when the rains nourish the soil, and then proceed to sowing. But do not be late: before winter, a young lawn should leave after 1-2 mowings.

Preparing the soil for planting seeds

The order of work is as follows:

• Clearing. First of all, the future site is cleared of all kinds of construction debris, stones. Stumps are uprooted, low-growing branches on trees are cut.
• Destruction of weeds. Then it's time for weed control. They must either be weeded out by hand, destroying them along with the roots, or chemically treated. In the first case, you will spend a lot of physical strength on the destruction of weeds, but you can immediately proceed to the next stage of work. With chemical weeding, you will have to wait at least a week until the drug begins to have a destructive effect. That is why it is recommended to treat the soil with chemicals in the fall. Then the weeds will disappear during the winter, and the chemicals themselves will have time to decompose into safe elements and will not harm when planting the lawn.
• Creation of a drainage system. If your site is in a lowland, then you need to save the earth from waterlogging. To do this, before digging up the lawn, make drainage. After rain, mark the places where water accumulates and dig deep holes (about a meter) in them. Line the bottom of the pits with broken bricks, then with coarse gravel, and over it with a layer of sand. Leave 40 cm on fertile soil. After planting, the water will go into the soil and through the soil into the drainage pit.
• Site leveling and digging. On uneven areas, it is necessary to level the terrain so that the lawn has a flat horizontal. To do this, pull the cords to the pegs at different ends of the site and look at the level of the difference. The pits fall asleep, the bumps are cut. After that, the entire area is dug up. Perennial weed roots, debris and stones are removed. Sandy soils are fertilized with black soil or peat. Too greasy diluted with sand.
• Ramming and loosening. Before, it is necessary to compact the soil tightly, walking on it in small steps or using a board. It is placed on the edge of the plot and jumped over it until the earth settles. Then they move the board and continue until they trample the entire area. You can also roll a thick log. As soon as you step on the ground, and it does not wash under your foot, the soil is ready for planting. It remains to slightly loosen it with a rake and sow it with a lawn mixture with the density recommended in the instructions.

After the earth is compacted, it is necessary to move the upper layer with a rake so that the seeds gain access to air and moisture.

grass sowing process

If you sow seeds with your own hands, then it is difficult to make the lawn even, like a brush, because the grass is scattered unevenly. As a result, some places will germinate densely, while others will grow weakly. To achieve uniformity, a portion of seeds calculated per meter of space is mixed with the same volume of fine sand and then sown. It is optimal to sow with a manual seeder, but you will not always find it on sale.

Sprinkle the seeds with earth and roll them with a log so that the birds do not peck. If the ground is dry, it is recommended to water from a small sprinkler under low water pressure so as not to wash the crops.

Information about lawn care technology will also be useful:

A manual seeder helps to save lawn grass seeds and at the same time the quality of plantings is more uniform.

Seeds are rolled with a special roller, and if it is not there, then they are slammed with a board or carefully trampled down with flat shoes

It remains to wait for the shoots and enjoy the beautiful lawn. By the way, along with the blades of grass, weeds will also climb. But they are no longer afraid of the lawn. After one or two mowings, annuals disappear without a trace, and the grass becomes a rich, thick carpet.

Organizing a green lawn on your site is easy. A decoratively designed area will become part of a cozy space. Can anything compare to the smell of freshly cut grass? The lawn absorbs dust and humidifies the air - this is very important during the dry summer. There are only a few steps on the way to a well-groomed lawn.

You can build a lawn on the site without resorting to the help of specialists. Before starting work, you need to decide on its type. If you conscientiously work on its arrangement, you will not have to correct mistakes later. Each type has its own characteristics, pros and cons. It all depends on what result you want to see. By type and purpose, lawns are divided into types:

• garden;
• sports;
• meadow;
• universal;
• roll lawn.

garden lawn

This type is considered the most popular, its arrangement does not require special frills. It will be possible to walk freely on it and have picnics. Making it in the country with your own hands is easy. The seed is unpretentious, tolerates heat well, is not afraid of shade and the scorching sun. Most often, the garden option is chosen for the decorative design of the territory, near the pools and in the recreation area.

sports turf

The green playground will be appreciated by people who love outdoor activities. This type is intended for sports. It is sown with special grass, on which you can safely run and play. Before sowing the lawn, it is necessary to prepare the drainage. Seed material for a sports field is able to withstand loads. Not afraid of trampling. When creating it, one should take into account the type of sport that will be played on the grass.

meadow lawn

A worthy alternative to a green lawn will be a meadow sown with wild herbs. It performs exclusively decorative functions, it is impossible to walk on it. Requires a haircut once a month, or even less often. The meadow looks very picturesque. This type of landscape makes it possible to achieve similarities with meadows created by nature. Most often, a flowering lawn is located on a cultivated area, near the patio. It is not difficult to create natural beauty on your site, it is enough to prepare the soil and buy seed.

Universal lawn

A universal type of landscaping is a dense grass cover, consisting of several varieties of cereals. In appearance, it is inferior to well-groomed garden lawns. However, it has a very strong herbal base that is not afraid of trampling. You can walk on it without fear. Planted with this species: play areas, patios and paths. In summer and spring, the lawn quickly overgrows, it needs to be cut often and correctly. Otherwise, it will look messy.

Rolled lawn

The problem with the arrangement of the lawn can be solved in a day. To date, this is the best, but far from the cheapest way to create a quality lawn. Roll laying of a grass guarantees receiving an equal surface of bright saturated color. It is very convenient to use it in order to quickly bring the territory into proper shape. Against the background of green grass, single-planted trees look good. Serves as an excellent grass cover for 7-8 years. You can learn more about rolled lawn.

How to make a lawn with your own hands step by step

The lawn can act as a landscaping element or occupy a large area. Landscape designs of small lawns look very nice. It would be wrong to call an overgrown and unkempt area a lawn. Only cut grass can be called it. To create a green corner in the country, there are no restrictions. The sale has everything you need, you just need the desire to work hard. If you are not yet experienced, it is better to practice on lawns that can be surrounded by trees. Having stuffed your hand, it will be easier to work with large areas.

Grass cannot be sown in uncompacted soil. From moisture, the soil will sag, and irregularities and depressions form at the place of subsidence.

1. Soil is sprinkled on top of the seeds, tamped again and watered by spraying.
2. With regular watering, seed germination will not take long.

Do not water the grass under strong pressure from the hoses. A fine spray will wet the soil well without harming the seeds.

Using the video as an example, you can clearly see how to make a lawn with your own hands. The authors of the video tried to bring the most useful information to the viewers.

Soil preparation

Preparation begins with clearing the site up to cleaning the smallest particles (stones, chips, gravel). Unnecessary trees and shrubs are best uprooted. If the plants are supposed to be left, they need to be dug around. The soil dug to a depth of 15 cm must be improved, depending on whether it is clay or sandy.

• add loam to sandy soil;
• in clay soil - sand;
• if the soil is not fertile, add rotted compost.

Existing weed roots must be removed immediately, otherwise it will be much more difficult to do it on the grass. Weeds will inhibit the growth of cereals, moreover, it does not look aesthetically pleasing. It is easy to remove weeds with modern means (raglon, roundup). Landing should be done after treatment with herbicides no earlier than 5 weeks later. Laying a plot for planting grass begins in the month of April. This must be done until the soil dries out, the maximum planting time is mid-May.

Weeds should not be thrown out, if they are piled up somewhere on the site, after 1.5 years good compost is formed

How to prepare a lawn for sowing. Video material prepared specifically for beginner gardeners.

Landing

It is very important to sow the lawn correctly, only in this case you can count on the result of the work done. Before planting, the top layer of pre-prepared soil is loosened with a rake. It is better to sow with special seeders. If there is no such device, we scatter, not sparing an equal layer, planting material. Instead of a seeder, craftsmen fit a tin can with holes made at the bottom.

The final step will be watering. Use a fine nozzle sprayer for this. On small lawns in the absence of a sprayer, it is permissible to use a regular watering can. The manufacturer indicates the consumption rates of seed on the seed packaging. It is also worth noting that the consumption can be different - it depends on what type of lawns the seeds are intended for.

If we talk about the time spent on landing, for a small area, one day is enough. When planting by hand, you need to monitor the uniformity, otherwise the grass will not completely cover the soil. Depending on the variety of seeds, the first shoots will appear after 14 days. To ensure good germination, it is necessary to take high-quality material for sowing. Do not rely on dubious lawn products. You can buy everything in specialized stores or via the Internet.

Care

Without proper care for the green lawn, its appearance will be unkempt. In order for the lawn to always please you, you need to take care of it all year round. You should not expect that the ennobled site will always be exemplary beautiful. Its content requires time and effort. Proper care includes:

• regular watering;
• mowing with a lawn mower or trimmer;
• top dressing with fertilizers;
• weed control.

lawn mowing

top dressing

1. Fertilization increases the resistance of the lawn to drought and weeds.
2. The subcortex affects the growth and color of turf grass, depending on the season. Fertilize - in summer and autumn.
3. Spray the fertilizer evenly according to the manufacturer's recommendations. The wrong ratio of fertilizers can harm the plant.

weeds

1. Weeds and dead grass are removed with a rake after cutting.
2. To saturate the soil with air, aeration (piercing) is carried out.
3. If signs of disease are found, the site is treated with fungicides.

A do-it-yourself green lawn is an ideal option to show your design skills and ennoble your yard. Even a small green lawn, there is a place on the site of caring owners. Flower beds, ornamental shrubs and alpine slides will be a good addition.

Golf maintenance professionals know how to make life as easy as possible with the right methods, tools and materials. Here are 10 secrets from them that will help you grow a great lawn with your own hands.

Sometimes one grass seems greener than another. And thicker. And much nicer and softer to the touch. Sometimes it’s a shame when, despite the fact that you spent a lot of time and effort on caring for the lawn in the country, you still couldn’t achieve the perfect result. This is because agricultural landscaping graduates and golf course maintenance professionals dedicate their entire lives to making it happen.

But even with the ever-increasing pressure to grow the perfect turf, golf course professionals successfully save on water and chemicals and still achieve excellent results. So says Tom Brooks, owner and manager of Carson Valley Golf Course in Gardnerville, who is credited for introducing environmentally friendly practices to the golf industry.

A lawn that does not need to be maintained has not yet been invented (although now we can cut the lawn beautifully automatically thanks to robotic lawn mowers). However, golf course professionals and landscaping professionals have come up with 10 secrets that help grow a beautiful lawn with your own hands, while reducing maintenance efforts to a minimum. So, let's talk a little about how to mow the grass correctly.

mowing

1. Mow often with sharp blades

If your dream is a perfect lawn, the key to achieving it is frequent mowing, which will thicken the grass and keep weeds out. Make sure your knives are well sharpened or the grass will look sloppy and vulnerable to disease. You can determine that the blade is dull by the quality of the lawn mower - if you get not an even row of cut grass, but “cut through” (the grass is not cut, but chopped off), this means that the blade needs sharpening.

Also note that it is not recommended to sharpen the lawn mower blade on your own, it is best to entrust this matter to specialists (sharpening is carried out in service centers and specialized workshops) - this is the only way you can be sure of a quality result.

2. Don't cut your hair too short

Golf course keepers cut their grass shorter to create a denser turf effect, but the downside of short-cut grass is that it grows back faster. "The shorter you cut your grass, the more fertilizer and water you'll need, and all of this will make lawn care even more difficult," says Peter Landshut, professor of landscape design at Penn State University.

But how short should the lawn be cut? Much depends on the type of grass you have in your lawn, but Emil Coates, professor of horticulture at Mississippi State University, is a proponent of the one-to-three rule: never cut more than one-third of the grass height at one time. If the grass is 6 centimeters tall, cut 2 centimeters or less. Even if you need to mow tall grass, it is recommended that you first cut off only the top, and only after a few days trim the rest to the desired size (this should be done in 2 or even 3 stages). Cut more and you run the risk of damaging the canopy, which will take two or even three mowing cycles to regenerate.

According to Roach Gausson, lawn designer at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, if you cut grass a little and leave it fairly tall, its roots will grow and go deeper into the soil. The deeper the grass roots, the better it will resist disease and the less water it will need. For information on how to change the grass cutting height, see the instruction manual that came with your lawn mower. Please note that different lawn mowers, due to some technical features, have different maximum and minimum cutting heights. This parameter must be taken into account when mowing.

It is also important to understand that on a personal plot, a lawn mower alone is not enough - it will be necessary to acquire more and or. Due to their compactness and mobility, they will allow you to effectively mow the grass around trees, between flower beds and along the fence.

3. Don't mow a wet lawn

The third rule that will help you create a beautiful lawn with your own hands is not to mow wet grass. This is fraught with the fact that the soil is compressed, and the roots of the grass will not be able to breathe. If this happens, the grass will dry out and unsightly bald patches will appear on your lawn.

4. Use the mulching function

Leave the cut grass particles where they were thrown after mowing. In this case, you will not only be able to avoid fussing with the grass catcher, but you will also be able to fertilize the soil with these particles. If you mow the grass often enough, the cut particles will be short and small, which means they will be easily absorbed by the soil, and the lawn will not look messy.

Many modern models of lawn mowers have a mulching function, which consists in chopping the cut grass. The principle of operation of such lawn mowers is as follows: the grass is cut, ground and then fed into the very base of the lawn, and does not remain lying on the surface. Thus, mulch becomes as effective as possible.

The possibility of mulching is provided in most models of lawn mowers on sale today, for example:, and many others.

Watering

5. Water generously, but infrequently.

"The biggest mistake most lawn owners make is overwatering the lawn, which causes excess vegetation (an unsightly, thick clump of tangled roots between grass and soil) to grow," explains Brooks. Daily watering prevents the roots from going deep into the soil and is also a waste of water. Instead, it's best to water the lawn sparingly but abundantly, and keep a close eye on whether the lawn needs additional watering.

According to Gausson, lawn watering is necessary if:

You feel resistance when you stick a screwdriver or a steel bar into the ground;

The grass begins to acquire a slight bluish tint;

Grass flattened after walking on the lawn does not rise back.

If you do not have a system of channels for irrigating the lawn, the usual one will be enough. Landshut advises to water the lawn every time to a depth of 2-3 centimeters. You can measure the water-soaked layer by placing an empty tin can on the grass. When it is full, move the sprinkler to another area and start measuring again. Once you have determined how much water your lawn needs, you can easily set your sprinkler to automatic.

Infertile soil that has a high percentage of clay in its composition, or soil that is compacted due to frequent walking on it, will not absorb moisture well, so watering the lawn so often does not make sense. If the water pools and runs into the walkways before the tin is full, go to Plan B: Water the lawn about an inch every evening for three days in a row, and then stop watering until the lawn is full. will be needed again.

6. Avoid watering at night

If you want to have the perfect lawn, don't leave your grass wet overnight. Before watering, make sure that the lawn has time to dry before it gets dark, as excessive moisture in the grass promotes disease. Watering your lawn is most effective in the early evening or morning. If you water the lawn at noon, the water will simply evaporate and not reach the roots.

Fertilizer

7. Don't Overfertilize

There is an erroneous opinion that it is impossible to grow a lawn with your own hands, and in order to give the grass a beautiful juicy color, you need to use as much fertilizer as possible. However, this is not the case at all.

“Excessive fertilization causes the grass to grow quickly, and the lawn will have to be mowed more often, and we don’t want that. Private users typically use far more fertilizers and pesticides than golf course maintainers,” notes Brooks. "And it's killing the lawn." Excessive fertilizer is also harmful to the environment: fertilizers are washed into streams and reservoirs, dragging them with duckweed. So you should carefully monitor where you pour the fertilizer, and sweep the spilled fertilizer from the ground to the lawn. In general, no amount of chemicals will help you grow the perfect lawn.

If you want to determine exactly what your lawn needs, check the soil composition every three to four years and send a soil sample to your local research lab. Such an analysis costs about 2,000 rubles and will help determine the quality of the soil and its composition, including the content of salts, organic matter, nitrates, nitrogen, phosphorus and lime. You can take the result to your nearest garden supply store, where they can help you find fertilizers and additives that are right for your lawn.

Most fertilizers come in granules and are easy to spread evenly across the lawn. In small areas, a manual fertilizer spreader can be used for this, and for larger areas, a wheeled spreader will be preferable.

Natural fertilizers, sometimes referred to as organic fertilizers, act slowly as they require heat and water to decompose and absorb into the soil.

In order not to make a mistake in choosing, you should ignore the name of the fertilizer, and carefully study its composition. The presence of ingredients that could well be found in a chemistry textbook, such as, say, ammonium nitrate, immediately indicates that you have a synthetic fertilizer in front of you. Organic fertilizers use only those ingredients that are found in nature, such as manure, silt, bone meal, feather meal and other poultry products. Both types of fertilizers should preferably be used twice a year, namely in spring and autumn.

8. Don't mix fertilizers

No matter what type of fertilizer you choose, use only one type of fertilizer. As Scott Meyer, editor of Organic Gardening magazine, warns, mixing organic and synthetic fertilizer is never a good idea.

Weed control

9. Grow thick grass, and weeds will not break through

The ideal lawn, of course, should not have weeds and diseases, it should only have thick, bright and strong grass. If there are few weeds on the lawn, pull them out by hand or use a garden tool with a metal fork-shaped tip. There will be no problems with weeds, especially if you pay your children or the neighbors' children for each weed they pull up.

After taking a good look at your lawn, you may want to wait for the problem to resolve itself, or even leave it as is, as golf course professionals often do. “If there are a few weeds on the lawn, we leave them alone until there is a threat that they will negatively affect the quality of the lawn and prevent the ball from rolling to the hole,” says Brooks.

10. Choose the right herbicide

If you think you still need some extra help with weed control, you can choose from two types of herbicides:

. "Pre-emergence" prevent seed germination and are usually applied once a year.

. Post-emergence is used when the seed has germinated primarily to control broadleaf weeds such as dandelions and chickweed (aka woodlice) or grassy weeds such as wheatgrass or even wild grass varieties such as fescue and bluegrass. In order to get rid of such weeds, simple mowing or weeding will not be enough.

Most herbicides are synthetic in composition. Natural weed control methods are primarily soil stabilization to prevent clogging, but corn gluten can be used as a natural pre-emergence herbicide, which can both fertilize the soil and prevent weed seeds from sprouting.

Two-in-one mixes of fertilizer and synthetic herbicide are a popular post-emergence additive because they solve two turf problems in one step. But Gausson still does not recommend using them, since in this case the herbicide gets on the entire lawn, and not just on problem areas.

Most of these products, when used in moderation, are not nearly as toxic as some media outlets have led us to believe. However, this is not a reason to use them in excess or apply where there are no weeds. It just doesn't make sense from an environmental point of view,” says Gausson.

If you're leaning towards synthetic herbicides, try using the least toxic herbicides first that are appropriate for your problem. Before buying any of the products, look for the safety data sheets for these substances, which are usually posted online by manufacturers, and compare the indicated LD50 values ​​\u200b\u200bof several similar products (the average dose of a substance that causes the death of half the members of the test group).

Once you've decided on your choice of herbicide, take a small sprayer, mix the minimum concentration of the herbicide, and walk across the lawn, spraying only problem areas.

If you're following all of these tips, but your lawn is still yellow, sluggish, and sparse, it may be infested with disease or pests. Treatment of diseases and pest control is a complex task that requires a comprehensive study of the problem before taking action. Take a sample of the affected grass along with the roots and a sample of the healthy grass. Take these samples to your local research lab or horticultural center. There you will be helped to identify the causative agent of the infection and choose effective methods of dealing with it.

If all this seems too complicated for you, then you will have to forever give up the dream of growing a lawn with your own hands and creating in its place a "dry garden" of plants that do not require watering, or plant plants in the garden that do not require regular mowing, such as mosses.

Or you can resort to a lawn care system that was used long ago in rural Wisconsin by neighbors of Barry Stewart, assistant professor of soil and crop science at the University of Mississippi.

“They waited for the grass on the lawn to grow, and then cut it to zero, literally to the very roots. For the rest of the summer, the grass didn't grow anymore,” Stewart says. “Of course, it was far from an ideal lawn, and it did not look very well-groomed - the grass just burned out. But they achieved their goal. There was no need to mow the lawn. When the rains started in September, the lawn came to life again and overgrown with grass.”

Among summer residents, there are fewer and fewer who would not use the lawn on their plots. Everyone approaches the issue differently: some break up a green lawn near the gazebo, others adapt the lawn for children's games, others consider it beautiful to adjoin the flower bed. Let's figure out how to do the landscaping work on the site with your own hands.

Peculiarities

Sowing and roll - these are the main varieties of lawns. The first is usually more beautiful, hardy, lush, but it also requires a lot of money. The second is more modest, but simple to create - it must be ready to buy and properly laid. You save yourself from waiting for grass sprouts, care, watering, although at the same time you lose the joy of the process of its creation. Your lawn after laying is ready immediately, however, it will cost you quite a lot.

Before making a decision, you need to decide on the type of lawn. The options are as follows: parterre, sports, park, Mauritanian, universal.

• Parterre lawn- exquisite, silky herbs, bright emerald color. The front cover, as a rule, the owners do not allow walking on it, since the plants are very delicate and susceptible to damage. Such a lawn is located in a country house near a house, a flower bed or an alpine hill for decorative purposes.

• Sports- on the contrary, quite a practical option. Planted with vegetation, which tends to recover quickly. Serves for games of children, is located near arbors, benches, country fountains. The load on the grass is not afraid.
• park lawn not as persistent as sports, but not as capricious as ground floor. The grass mixture that makes up the lawn is selected in such a way that you can, if not run and wallow, walk barefoot on it. In this case, the grass will not suffer much.

• moorish lawn- This is a beautiful meadow. Herbs here are selected flowering. So you get a fragrant, lush carpet: cornflowers, California poppy, lavatera, chamomile, tenacity. It is good to sunbathe on the Moorish splendor.
• Universal- a lawn of wide application. It does not wear off, the grass does not wrinkle, at the same time it is also a beautiful area with special vegetation. Can be used in both shade and sun.

Types of design

To design a smooth lawn, you need to look at ordinary green grass creatively and with imagination. The belief of the lazy that the lawn is vegetation that only needs to be mowed occasionally will immediately cross out the whole thing. Tune in to serious care of the green lawn, which will become beautiful only as a result of careful care for it.

The lawn in front of the house looks luxurious if you arrange a flower garden in the middle of a green lawn. The green grassy background will be a great frame for the flower bed and set off its elegant palette. In this case, the flower bed should be bordered by a strip of bare earth or a decorative border so that the lawn does not grow into the flower bed.

In general, gardeners need to work very responsibly with the edge of the lawn. It is cut with a shovel, and it is better if according to the pattern. A 3 cm groove is created at the undercut point, which is filled with mulch. The lawn must have its clear configuration. A well-groomed edge makes the lawn more decorative, solemn.

Masters of landscape design offer to dilute the “green lake” with bright accents to taste. For example, to form spots from daffodils, hyacinths, forsythia. Many owners of acres like single specimens of ornamental trees or shrubs on the lawn. It can be thuja, juniper, mini-cypress, spirea, hydrangea. Here you need to choose instances that would be combined with each other.

On the lawn it is good to start up an elegant path along the edge or center. The path will emphasize the aesthetic individuality of the lawn. Cutting out various shapes on the lawn has become a fashion trend - circles, squares or complex patterns. Fans of unique figures mow paws, leaves with beds, stars and more subtle designs on lawns.

What grass to plant?

In order to achieve a healthy, refined lawn, several generations of breeders have filtered different varieties of vegetation to create the perfect lawn.

Lawn grass requirements are as follows:

• they must grow in one place for many years;
• be resistant to cold;
• have a dynamic, measured rate of growth of young leaves;

• do not suffer from constant haircuts;
• have a low, near the ground, tillering center;
• do not give out hard long shoots.

It is these properties that thin bent grass and red fescue have - the perfect combination for an emerald, delicate parterre lawn.

For a sports lawn, cereals are harvested that are used to developing without moisture, as well as fescue and bluegrass.

To get a park lawn, they sow sheep fescue, reed fescue, shoot bent grass, ryegrass, timothy grass. These are all shade-loving, slow-growing herbs that do not require frequent cutting. In a universal lawn, a mixture of different varieties of red fescue and bluegrass has proven itself well.

Accommodation options

When choosing a place for a lawn in the country, it is important to think not only about yourself, but also about your green lawn. After all, she has to grow, so you should take into account the structure of the soil and the "requests" of herbs. For example, it is logical to break an English lawn in front of the house, it needs a well-lit area, a shaded one will not work. In general, any grass will need the sun, albeit periodically, otherwise the crops will not give a rich green color.

It is quite acceptable to sow a lawn near a private house, just do not bring crops close to fruit trees. Large plantings suck out all the nutrients from the soil. The grass will not have enough of the required set of elements.

If your yard is lowland with high humidity, it will also be a problem choice for the lawn. Will have to arrange drainage. Grass mixtures do not tolerate wet soils, their roots begin to rot.

Terraces and other elevation differences in the summer cottage are not very suitable for the lawn. They have to be reinforced, smoothed. And, of course, you should not form a lawn at the parking lot of the car or between the gate and the house, where there is a constant movement of people. He will simply die, because even the most hardy grass does not imply a load in which it is trampled endlessly. As a way out, you can consider the option of paving a path with tiles along the route of movement through such a lawn.

A fountain in the middle of a green meadow will look charming. The lawn-fountain will amaze your guests with an emerald perspective and beating jets of water. Sparkling drops falling on the young green of the lawn are a delightful accent to decorate and refresh the site.

The originals adapted to sow lawns even on the roof of garden houses. For this, a special stand is constructed and undersized grasses are selected. Ecologists believe that green roofs are an additional source of oxygen and have a beneficial effect on a person's well-being.

Rooftop lawns are practical at latitudes where rainfall is not uncommon. Nearly 70 percent of the moisture is taken up by the roots of the plants you plant above your head.

How to grow your own hands: step by step instructions

The technology of growing a lawn by hand is quite simple, but it is very important to fully comply with all the rules. The bookmark is carried out by carefully digging up the soil on level ground. In the process of digging, the soil under the lawn will have to be perfectly leveled, cleaned of stones and roots, as well as weeds. It will be much more difficult to fight with the roots on the ascended grass. All unnecessary shrubs are uprooted. If you want to leave a tree, carefully dig around it.

Digging is carried out to a depth of 15 cm. If the soil is completely sandy, dilute it with loam. If clay - on the contrary, add sand. It is good to “mix” compost under the lawn sowing. The next step is to further fertilize the soil. Apply as much of the special compound as indicated on the All-Purpose Lawn Fertilizer bag. Calculate the concentration depending on the area that you have planned to equip. Then take a roller and tamp the dug up area well. Do not apply extra effort - just go over the surface with it.

A very important stage is the sowing of grass. If you still grow a lawn, and do not spread a finished roll on the prepared soil. It is better to sow seeds in calm weather so that they lie evenly in the ground, and do not fly to neighboring beds or flower beds.

The best time to bookmark the site is April. It is important to do this before the ground dries out. From laying to sowing should take at least five weeks (taking into account the fact that herbicides were applied), so the planting deadline is the first two weeks of May.

The surface after preparation is loosened with a rake. For the optimal arrangement of the lawn, special seeders are used. If such a necessary device is not stocked, then you can come up with the most tin can with holes. Seeds should lie in a dense, dense layer.

On top of the seeds, the soil must be carefully sprinkled, leveled, tamped again and poured with a “fine rain” with a weak pressure of water. The first shoots usually appear in a week. When the grass rises to 5 cm, it will be necessary to carry out the first haircut. Then you have to mow the lawn regularly, during the rainy season - more often, otherwise the greenery will lose its charm.

Feed the lawn in summer and autumn. This can be done by spraying fertilizers. To supply air to densely growing grass, it is pierced, producing aeration.

Try also to break a vegetable bed next to the lawn with beautiful green components - lacy lettuce, terry basil, purple-lilac ornamental cabbage.

Reviews

Lawn reviews contain a variety of opinions. Romantics like that there is where to rest the eye. Practitioners praise lawn grass, which clogs weeds well. Most agree that the lawn is not for the lazy, it always requires some kind of work to maintain a modest lawn in an aesthetically pleasing state.

It is believed that it is still better to choose the usual green grass mixture, since flower lawns do not carry the same peace as a uniform emerald playground. However, in this case, you need to somehow arrange the lawn.

Experienced landscape designers offer to make a border of loose material along the edges of the clearing. Granite crushed stone, pebbles, special chips are suitable. In this form, the lawn will have a finished and emphasized cultural look.

For those owners of the site, whose soul asks for bright inclusions in the overall picture, we recommend small flower beds with elegant plants. Well illustrate the theme of cineraria, marigolds, saxifrage, ageratum. In the trend, small ponds near the lawn - water and grass give rise to a unique feeling of peace.

In fairness, it should be said that negative reviews about the “character” of the lawn also take place on the forums. For example, with insufficient compaction of the soil, the lawn often sags. And with too aggressive watering, part of the clearing "leaks", after which bumps form. Then the lawn needs to be reseeded, starting to do almost everything anew.

A certain category of summer residents complains about domestic mowers that do not capture grass well. But the perfect lawn mowing is the main process for its maintenance. Forum participants come to the conclusion that imported lawn care equipment is better in use. And certainly with the function of collecting grass, so that the cut tops are not later collected all over the lawn with a rake.

The commenters specify that constant mowing of the lawn and walking on it, even in the most hardy grass mixtures, gives rise to fatigue, the grass begins to take root worse, the root mass “shrinks”. Therefore, the authors of the reviews emphasize that any lawn is sometimes supposed to rest. For this purpose, it is quite possible to allow the ground part of the grass to grow to 12 or even 15 centimeters. After all, mowing is always a huge stress for plants.