Summer Lawn Care Tips
By Josh Gray, Fri Dec 9th

Summer is just around the corner, and your lawn could probablyuse a little maintenance before the summer season of backyardBBQs and swimming in the pool. So what are you doing now to getyour lawn ready? Lawn care is often feared as a difficult andtime intensive process, but with a few guidelines and tips, youcan easily have a healthy green lawn in time for the firstbackyard party of the season.

First of all, if you can spare a minute of your time, don’t hirea lawn care “specialist” or professional landscaper. Buying yourown lawn care products is cheap and easy, with hundreds ofvendors offering products online and in Do-It-Yourself stores. Awide variety of products such as weed controllers to fertilizerscan be found online, and usually can be found at reasonableprices, especially when you do a little online searching.

Starting off on the right foot is important to reviving yourlawn after winter. Fertilizer is the key to ensuring stronghealthy growth of the grass in your yard. Fertilizing the grassdoes more than just make it green. Of course it will make itgrow too, but lot's of things happen when you fertilize.Fertilizer makes the seed germinate faster, and get started outof the ground. After the grass has a good start fertilizer willmake the grass get thicker and send off beneficial chemicalslike Rhizomes, Stolons, and Tillers all making the grass thickerand healthier.

What most people want to know about fertilizing is - how muchand when? Typically, you want to fertilize 4 times each season,spread 60 days apart. Start in early spring approximately 30days before the growing season begins in your area, continuingthrough the growing season until fall. Spring fertilizing getsthe grass off to a fast start giving you that rich green coloreveryone wants. A word of warning though, don't use too muchfertilizer, follow the listed guidelines on the bag.

Mowing is the most misunderstood

part of lawn care, and the mostoften incorrectly performed part of lawn care. Far too manypeople will set their mowers too low or "scalp" the lawn. Howmany times have you spent time mowing your grass in hopes of abeautiful result only to end up with brown spots? Cutting toomuch off the top leads to thinned out grass, and shallow rootsystems.

Now once you have achieved the perfect lawn, you must do regularmaintenance to prevent it from going back to being a pasture.Spend a little time and money and keep it watered and you willkeep the lush grass you spent your hard earned money and timeon. The ideal way to water your lawn is with an AutomaticUnderground Sprinkler System. This way the watering is doneevery day that it needs it, you don't have to drag hoses, youdon't waste water from over watering, and you get all of thelawn watered, not just where you happen to set the sprinkler. Ifyou implement this type of sprinkler system, make sure to watershrubbery and annuals separate from the lawn. If you applied thesame amount of water on your landscape as gets put on the lawnyou would surely kill some plants from over watering.

Now that you’re ready to care for your lawn, you’ll need to getyour supplies. Lawn care products can be found at many localgardening centers, or through many online merchants. Buyinggardening supplies online is growing in popularity, and madeeven more economical by online coupons and discounts. Forcoupons on everything from fertilizers to lawn tools andequipment, check out www.CouponChief.com and easily saveyourself some big bucks. Spend the extra cash on your first bigBBQ of the summer and invite all your neighbors over to droolover your well manicured, lush green lawn.

About the author:Josh Gray, President of UC San Diego’s Gardens Club, is aconsultant to CouponChief.com. This online websiteprovides free coupons and discount codes to many favoritegardening websites on their home and garden coupons page.