With the right care and attention, your lawn could be beautiful. The essential gardening tools make this easy to achieve and maintain.
Sprayers or Sprinklers
Lawns should be watered heavily when really needed – enough to soak six to eight inches deep. This encourages the roots to grow deep into the ground.
A lawn needs to be watered when the colour changes from green to bluish-grey and doesn’t spring back a few seconds after being stepped on.
Early morning is the best time to water. The water won’t evaporate as easily, and the moisture will keep the lawn cool as the day heats up.
A sprayer or sprinkler will also ensure that you adequately water in any seed you are putting on bare spots.
Mowing encourages the grass plant to expand. After mowing the plant grows new leaves in order to absorb sunlight. In addition, a mown lawn requires less water and nutrients and reduces the workload on the root system.
During the growing season, frequent mowing is recommended. Remove only about one-third of the grass plant. Ideally, the grass should be between two and three inches tall. Varying the pattern of mowing helps prevent soil compaction and encourages grass to grown upright.
Lawn mowers are available as hover or rotary models. A hover model is well suited to an irregular-shaped lawn or one with slopes. They are easier to move in any direction and lighter to push up or pull down any slopes.
Rotary models are available in petrol and electric versions. The petrol versions are particularly well suited to larger lawns. A rotary mower is essential if you want to add stripes to your lawn.
Brush Cutters and Line and Grass Trimmers
For cutting grass near objects such as trees, on steep or irregular terrain and for trimming lawn edges, a trimmer helps to provide a professional look.
Electric models tend to be easier to handle, but you need to be near a power source, while petrol versions compensate for being noisier and heavier with more power.
If your lawn contains large amounts of moss or is looking particularly yellow, it may be time to scarify. This process removes the undergrowth and moss from your lawn. In the short term, it will make your lawn look worse, but it can be worth it in the long term.
Scarification needs to be done when the grass is growing strongly in order to recover, so late spring or early autumn are good times.
Raking the lawn by hand with a lawn rake is the best way to remove moss and thatch but is an exhausting task for even small areas. For larger areas an electric or petrol scarifier will be required. In all likelihood, this will not be a machine that you need to make use of regularly, so a short-term hire may make more sense.
With the essential gardening tools to hand, your lawn could be looking fantastic and will be easy to maintain.