Getting your lawn ready for Christmas

With Christmas just around the corner, there are some key things that you can do to make sure your patch of lawn looks just right for the big day.

As my daughter reminded me this morning, Christmas is only a week away and you may well ask, what can you achieve in a week? and the answer is - plenty! Following are some simple things that you can do that won't take up too much of your time or money. 

Moisture management

Since there is only a low chance of rain between now and Christmas, managing the amount of moisture in your soil is the single biggest thing you can do to perk your lawn up. Through decades of looking at Adelaide soils, I can assure you that most soils don't wet evenly. This means that when you water your lawn, the water penetrates deeply in some areas and not at all in others. It's by far and away the leading cause of patchy looking lawns. When a warm day comes along, the areas where the water does penetrate do well and in the areas where it doesn't, the lawn drys out. 

The solution to this problem is a liquid soil wetting agent. I'd recommend the following:

• This weekend, grab yourself a hose-on liquid wetting agent from us or your local hardware store 
• Apply it evenly across your whole lawn
• Immediately after application, water the wetting agent in. I'd recommend applying at least 25mm of water to your lawn at this point. If you're using a sprinkler attached to your hose, move it around your lawn every half hour. If you're using sprinklers, leave them on for about an hour in each zone The wetting agent will make sure the water you apply evenly penetrates through the soil - this is something your lawn will instantly thank you for!

Fertilise

Now that you have water penetrating properly,  if you haven't already in the past 6 weeks, give your lawn a feed. It's amazing how more effective fertilising is when the fertiliser is able to be carried down to the root zone of the lawn. Since water is the carrier of nutrients, if it's rolling off the top then the chances are that your fertiliser is being carried away from the lawn too. I'd recommend the following:

• After watering in the wetting agent, apply a solid type (not a liquid) mineral fertiliser such as Greenkeeper or Emerald Green.  You can do this on the same day - in fact, that I'd recommend that you do to make the most of the time we have before Christmas
• Water the fertiliser in as soon as you've applied it so that you can't see any of it on the surface

Mow

Give your lawn a mow, but don't cut it too low otherwise you may remove some of the much-needed colour. The idea would be to clip off any weeds seed heads and pick up any leave litter on the surface. While you're there, trim the edges - neat edges make all the difference ;) 

Patch

If you have any large dead or dying patches, you can replace them with some instant turf. We stock a range of turf varieties over the weekend for pickup and Bunnings will most likely have some on hand too. Replacing lawn so close to Christmas is probably the last thing you want to be thinking about but it is an option if you need it.  

Pigment Dye

As a last resort, and if all else fails, there are some very nice products that you can use to spray your lawn green. Greek keepers have been using these products for years and they are now available in home lawn sized packs. They won't do a miracle, but they will add colour to a tired lawn instantly. Click here for more information

We'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of our readers a wonderful Christmas and as always, if you'd like any more information around this blog, give us a call on 8298 0555 or email stefan@paulmunnsinstantlawn.com.au