How To Completely Redo Lawn

Kill The Existing Turf And Weeds

Reasons Your Lawn Is Full Of Weeds

Starting out, you probably want to know just why weeds have overtaken your grass, so you can prevent it from happening again.

• Poor grass growth: Weeds thrive in thinning grass. The best way to keep weeds out is to have thick, tall, dense grass all over your lawn. If your grass is cut too short, its more susceptible to a full-on weed invasion. Setting your mower to the highest setting can help with this.
• Not enough water: Weeds tend to have robust root systems, and can easily compete with your grass for moisture. If you are not watering your grass enough, the weeds can absorb what water there is, taking it away from your grassroots.
• Compacted soil: If your soil becomes too compacted, whether from excessive foot traffic or poor soil composition, your grassroots wont have access to the nutrients, water, or air they need. This stressed turf makes for an exceptional weed breeding ground.

Mow Lawn To 1 In Height Dethatch And Aerate

Your lawn cannot live without air, water, and nutrients. When a thick layer of thatch builds up, the new seed may germinate in the thatch rather than in the soil. If that occurs the seed will not root into the soil and will not survive. Dethatching and aerating can help rejuvenate a lawn by restoring passageways to the soil. Fall is an excellent time to dethatch your grass. Thatching rakes can be used but for lawns with severe thatch problems or if you have heavy or compacted soil, aerate the soil and add LeafGro, or other high-quality lawn soil.

Aeration creates openings in a lawn to allow air, nutrients, and water to reach grass roots. Choose an aerator that extracts plugs of soil 2 to 3 inches long and deposits them on the lawn. Allow these plugs to decompose naturally. Be sure to aerate when the soil is moist, not too wet and not too dry.

Don’t Miss: Does Aarons Sell Lawn Mowers

Why Is Your Lawn Struggling

Among the most common lawn care mistakes, neglect can either lead to a number of common landscaping problems or exacerbate causes that were already present. Deciding which is the case for your lawn will answer the question of whether you should renovate or redo the landscaping. One way to illustrate this point is through the example of watering.

Grass needs regular watering to grow, but the rate of irrigation must be adjusted seasonally based on the changing growth cycle at different times of the year. In winter, most lawns in North Central Florida are dormant hence the reason you dont have much mowing to do during cooler months but continuing to water at the same frequency as during summer might lead to overwatering. Too much water is far worse for lawns than too little water, as the excess moisture saturates the soil and prevents absorption of oxygen, which is required to feed the roots of grass, trees, and plants. Oxygen-starved plants more easily fall prey to insect damage and diseases than plants with adequate oxygen levels. If the landscaping is struggling due to your watering habits, your yards glory can be restored by renovating the lawn and reforming your watering habits.

Keep Current Trends In Mind

Of course, the look of your new landscaping should be shaped by your own personal style. But there are certain trends that are worth keeping in mind while youre drawing up your plans.

• Use native plants wherever possible. This trend has both environmental and economic benefits, since native plants require less water and other resources to thriveand are usually cheaper to buy.
• Choose low-maintenance landscaping if youre not an avid gardener. Youll save time and energy without undoing all your hard work in creating a beautiful yard.
• Dont go overboard. Especially in smaller yards, its easier to maintain your landscapingand appreciate its beautywhen your yard is uncluttered.

Read Also: Lawn Mower Rental Lowes

Remove The Existing Lawn

Removing and killing your existing grass is the first step. One easy method is to apply an herbicide for grasses on your lawn. Multiple applications may be necessary, notes Fine Gardening. This method may damage or kill nearby plants, so to avoid this risk, consider using another method, such as smothering the grass.

Smother the existing lawn by covering it completely with plastic that blocks the light, newspaper or cardboard. It may take several months for this method to work, but the heat under the plastic and lack of light will kill the grass and other weeds while allowing the organic material of the dead grass to stay in the soil.

If you want to replant sooner and are willing to do more physical work, consider using a grass removal machine such as a sod cutter or tiller. For example, one option is to remove the sod by manually digging it up. Use a spade or a sod cutter to cut the sod into strips. You can also use a tiller as a grass removal tool. After breaking up the grass, you may want to apply an herbicide as well with this method as tilling can propagate unwanted weeds and grass seed.

How To Care For New Seed

Newly seeded areas require different care than established lawns. Follow the recommendations below.

• Apply starter fertilizer at the rate recommended on the label.
• Irrigate the area should to maintain a consistently moist soil.
• Check moisture levels in the underlying soil to prevent excessive irrigation.
• Grass will germinate and grow more vigorously in aerification holes or slits made by the power rake.
• Begin mowing the lawn when it has grown to about 2 1/2 inches.
• Keep traffic, including children and pets, off of the lawn as much as possible, until the lawn has been mowed a few times and the new grass begins to mature.

Don’t Miss: Are Trugreen Chemicals Safe For Pets

Continue Feeding The Lawn

Wait four weeks after seeding and re-apply LovelandGolf Course Starter or Renovator.

Finally, after another four weeks, apply Loveland Snowman the most essential fertilizer to use over your new lawn. Snowman boosts root growth and supplies vital nutrients to enhance drought and traffic tolerances as well as promote early spring green up.

Consider A Flow Timer

A flow timer or water timer measures water flow in hundreds of gallons. You multiply the square footage of your lawn by .62 gallons and determine the total number of gallons needed for the entire lawn. If your lawn is not absorbing water as quickly as you think it should, or you find that puddling occurs when you water, water in shorter cycles such as 10 minutes on and 10 minutes off to allow the water to soak in.

Recommended Reading: Lawn Care Facebook Ads

How Do You Stop Grass From Growing In The Garden

Grasses may increase the beauty of your lawn, but over grasses can also destroy the beautiful view. You can easily get rid of this unwanted grass. Also, by applying some simple techniques, you can stop grass from growing. Lets see what can help you to prevent growing the grass.

• Using herbicides can help you to stop growing the grass on the lawn. It will reduce the moisture of the soil, and you can easily get rid of the grass.
• When you use the chemical spray, it will quickly kill the grass and other plants.
• Salt is another ingredient that naturally kills the grass from growing in the garden.
• If you want to stop growing grasses on the lawn or any yard, you can apply the salt and hot water mixture on the ground.
• Pouring the hot water like boiling water will also kill the roots and stop the grass from growing.
• You can also use the vinegar as this is one of the cheapest ingredients that helps to stop growing grass.

Keep Seed Consistently Moist

After fertilizing, water lightly so the soil surface is wet. Continue watering daily, keeping the seed consistently moist, and so the soil does not become hard or baked. This requires watering multiple times a day. As the grass seed begins to germinate and fill in, reduce the watering frequency, but increase the amount of water with each irrigation. Deep watering as the grass matures will train the roots to penetrate deep into the soil.

Don’t Miss: Cub Cadet Made In Usa

Why Renovate Your Lawn

There are many reasons to take on the task of a fall lawn renovation, first among them is because it will make your yard look better and can help raise your property value. No one wants to look out at bare patches or thick weeds in their yard. In addition, a nice, lush lawn helps control soil erosion, filters pollution from groundwater, keeps the summer ground temperatures more moderate and adds much-needed oxygen to the air. Our lawn and garden care products provides the essential nutrients necessary to fully renovate your lawn.

Get To The Root Of The Matter

Start by dethatching your yard. Thatch is that thick layer of grass clippings and other organic material at the base of your grass. Too much starves your grass of oxygen and nutrients. Shovel out a triangular plug of grass thats a few inches deep. If the thatch layer is up to an inch thick when you press on it, its time to detach. Its best to do this in spring or fall.

Also Check: How Much To Pay Teenager For Yard Work 2021

How To Replace An Old Lawn

This article was co-authored by Jeremy Yamaguchi. Jeremy Yamaguchi is a Lawn Care Specialist and the Founder/CEO of Lawn Love, a digital marketplace for lawn care and gardening services. Jeremy provides instant satellite quotes and can coordinate service from a smartphone or web browser. The company has raised funding from notable investors like Y Combinator, Joe Montana, Alexis Ohanian, Barbara Corcoran and others.There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 314,741 times.

Two of the best ways to replace an old lawn with a new one are planting with seeds, or laying down grass that comes in strips of sod. Sodded grass cuts back significantly on the time you have to wait for your new lawn to replace your old. Seeded grass is cheaper and can be more dependable. Either choice will work to replace your old, patchy lawn with new grass.

What Approach Do I Recommend When Killing A Lawn And Starting Over

For me, renting a sod cutter and removing your old turf is the best way to go, and its the approach I recommend.

I dont like spraying herbicides on my lawn. I worry about run-off, my kids, my dog, and the rest of my neighborhood, so I avoid that whenever possible.

Theres also a lot of waiting around for the lawn to die.

Solarizing is a much more natural approach, but it still requires a lot of waiting and a lot of plastic all over your yard. Not ideal.

While using a sod cutter and removing your turf is labor intensive and expensive , you can get a new lawn established within 2 weeks from seed, and in a long weekend if youre getting a sod delivery.

Anything worth having is worth working for, and a fabulous lawn is one of those things.

Youll appreciate your lawn more if you broke a sweat earning it.

You May Like: How To Repel Geese From Yard

What You Should Let The Pros Handle

Some common tasks when redoing your landscaping require specialized skills to accomplish safely or without causing further damage to your yard:

• Removing large trees and shrubs.
• Tearing up large portions of your lawn.
• Demolishing an elevated deck.
• Tearing down unstable or high retaining walls.

“Tree care specialists are the best for taking care of any large trees. A landscaping company can handle smaller-specimen trees and shrubs.”

– Molly Meulenbroek | General Manager, Studleys Flower Garden

The Long Road To A Successfully Seeded Lawn

Depending on the exact conditions and the time of year we plant, it can take anywhere from three months to a year from the day a lawn is seeded until it’s fully grown in. A lot goes on in that time, but it can be frustrating if you don’t know what to expect when. Our timeline on the left outlines the major events in a lawn seeding project .

Let’s break down this timeline. Before we can begin, the property must be properly graded, and quality topsoil may need to be added depending on the quality of what’s already there. We then use a machine called a slice-seeder to put down a precisely calibrated amount of grass seed at the proper depth. Straw or another moisture-saving material is typically put down on top of the grass.

Next up is germination, which is just a fancy way of saying the seeds are sprouting. Our favorite type of grass seed is called RTF, and it can be expected to germinate 10-14 days after planting. Usually you won’t see every seed sprouting at once, but if you keep an eye on your lawn it will start to look more and more green every day.

A month to a month and a half after seeding we can start mowing. In the meantime weeds may have gotten taller than the grass, but to give the new turf the best chance of survival we need to wait to mow it. We promise that in the end the weeds will be gone, you just may be stuck with them at first.

You May Like: Trushield Trugreen

Kill The Existing Lawn

This is the longest process in renovating your lawn spraying and waiting. You will need to use a non-selective herbicide to kill your existing grass. Round-up or products containing glyphosate are common products to use. I, however, opt for a safer option such as Avenger Organics.

These chemicals are foliar, which means the plant will take in the product through its blades. So dont mow too low before applying.

Consider watering as you normally would in between sprays of chemicals. Why? It will help push up anything that did not get killed in the first round be it weeds or grass and ensure you work with as clean of a surface as possible.

Next, you may have to start mowing and bagging your clippings to make sure everything has died off. Rake or a quick dethatch to remove the dead debris is a good idea to again ensure everything is brown.

Regardless of what you choose, read the label and do not exceed the maximum rates. Follow how frequently to apply, and how long after you can seed. This will dictate when you can start the next steps.

What To Consider Before Killing A Lawn And Starting Over

You can make some big mistakes and make a bad lawn look even worse if you try to re-do your lawn but take the wrong approach.

I dont want you to waste your time, money, or make your neighbors angry. There are certain things that you need to consider and instructions you will have to know if you decide to proceed.

Ill discuss those here.

Recommended Reading: Typical Lawn Care Cost

S For Successful Fall Lawn Renovation

Early to mid-fall is a great time to take on the important job of a fall lawn renovation. The soil is still warm, which encourages quick germination, and yet the air is cool, which allows the young grass to grow without drying out. The perfect combination of grass seeds to germinate and turf to take root quickly.

How To Permanently Kill Grass A Complete Guidelines 2021

If you are reading this article now, then you must be suffering from the unwanted grass on the lawn or in the garden. However, the grass increases the beauty in the lawn. But unwanted grass can reduce beauty. That is why you need to kill those grasses. By looking through this article, I hope you will get the answer of how to permanently kill grass?

Now, there are so many ways you can apply for killing the grass permanently from the place you want. You can use salt, hot water, vinegar, baking soda, herbicides, etc. Apply one of these ingredients, and your grass will be removed forever. But, make sure you apply the perfect amount to work properly.

Does Salt Kill Grass permanently?

Killing the grass from the roots is very easy if you apply some techniques. In many ways, you can remove or permanently kill grass from roots. Among the other components, salt is the one. If you apply the salt directly, it will completely damage the roots and stop growing.

When you apply the salts to the roots, it will slowly remove the moisture. And when the roots do not get enough moisture, it will stop growing. To remove the unwanted grass from your lawn, you can apply 1 pound of salt with 1 gallon of water. This will immediately affect the grassroots.

Contents

• Frequently Asked Questions

Read Also: Who Invented The Zero Turn Mower