What Is The Proper Height To Mow Grass To Keep It Healthy
In the spring and fall , your lawn should be kept at the 2.5 3-inch mark and in the hotter and drier summer periods at least 3 inches. Contrary to popular belief, if you cut the lawn shorter it doesnt make it grow at a slower rate, it can actually cause it to lose moisture and scorch.
Did you know: LawnSavers offers lawn maintenance service throughout the GTA. If youre looking for lawn care in Barrie, Toronto, or surrounding areas, please reach out to us today.
-
Were here for you!
Monday to Friday
Mow At The Proper Height
The shorter your grass is, the more you are going to feel these grade variations when you walk across it. Mowing your lawn at 3-3.5 isnt only good for the health of the lawn, but it can help give some cushion underneath. Imagine stepping on a welcome mat with a marble underneath it, and then stepping on a couch cushion with a marble underneath it. Youll feel it less if the grass is taller.
Why Do We Need To Aerate
Lawn aeration is a treatment used when the soil in your lawn is compacted. A lawn can become easily compacted if a lot of action goes on in your yard. Parking cars on your lawn, animals running around, and kids playing on the lawn are just some common ways soil can become compacted. Compacted soils make it so water and air do not reach the roots of the grass in your lawn, leaving your lawn lacking the nutrients it needs to be healthy. If you live in an area with clay soils, your soil is more likely to become compacted than areas with sandy soils. The bonds in the clay soil are much closer together, making it difficult for water and air to penetrate to the roots.
Don’t Miss: Trugreen Lawn Care Prices
What Is Rolling Your Lawn
Rolling your lawn is exactly what it sounds like.
Its the process of rolling a heavy barrel across your lawn. It compacts the ground under it as it rolls across.
For serious rollers, you can buy a machine that looks like a steamroller.
For everyday people, you can opt for a handheld piece of equipment for about a hundred bucks or so like this one from Brinly.
- NEW Easy-Turn Plug: Brinly Rollers now feature a new drum plug design, making filling and emptying your roller quicker and easier than ever
- Push/Pull Combination: Convenient push or tow-behind design provides versatility for rolling tight areas or larger open spaces. Perfect tool for erasing lawn damage from moles and frost, or packing down loose dirt, seed, or sod.
- 28 Gallon Capacity: Sturdy roller holds up to 28 gallons of water or sand and is both light enough to push through the yard and rugged enough to withstand towing behind a tractor.
You hold the handle and push the roller in front of you. There are lawn services that offer rolling, but youll probably be better off just doing it yourself.
Theres no special form or anything thats required for rolling your lawn. Just put on a nice playlist to keep you entertained and start pushing.
For best results, play Push It by Salt-N-Pepa.
The roots of your grass will grow in the empty spaces in your soil.
Its also hard for water to seep into a lawn thats been rolled and therefore compacted.
Rolling The Lawn Can Get Rid Of Moles
Finally, rolling your lawn is a good way to deal with moles.
No, not the moles on your back the moles in your lawn.
Moles love to burrow and make your lawn into a game of minesweeper. A quick and easy solution to this problem is to roll your lawn.
This will compress and fill in any mounds or holes in your lawn. The result is a flat lawn that is prime for growing grass.
Also Check: How To Get Rid Of Geese On Lawn
Why You Should Roll Your Lawn
Benefits of Rolling Your Lawn My grandfather used to tell me that he needed to get out his turf roller every spring and run it over his back yard lawn to prevent the spirits underneath from rising up through the ground. While that may not have been strictly accurate, it ended up being beneficial for his lawn anyway, because using that heavy duty ground roller always helped to identify any rough spots or areas that required re-seeding.
Using a heavy duty ground roller on your lawn or field is extremely beneficial. From golf courses, to grass airstrips, rolling your grass makes a huge difference in your fields overall health. If you own a property with a large grass field or lawn, such as a large estate, golf course, or sports complex, you will love the benefits of using a turf roller from TurfTime Equipment.
Does Rolling Grass Help It Grow
If you have a rather sandy soil, rolling will do no harm. If you have clay, however, frequent rolling will damage the soil-structure and restrict air-flow into the soil, reducing root growth. This helps to keep the seed from drying out and is better and easier than trying to cover the seed with a thin layer of soil.
Read Also: How Much Does It Cost To Have Your Lawn Rolled
Roll Your Lawn To Ruin Your Soil
This is obviously not possible with your home lawn. The more natural, bulky soil is a great home for the thousands of tiny organisms, bugs, grubs and worms. These need access to moisture and air held in air pockets within the soil, so rolling your lawn and squeezing out these air pockets is a very bad idea. This includes building up soil to lay a new lawn.
How To Roll Your Lawn
Ok, so you still want to roll your lawn? If you are going to roll your lawn and there is nothing I can write to change your mind, here are some tips for how to roll your lawn and minimize the damage you’re doing to the soil at the same time.
Read Also: Battery Powered Lawn Edger
Aeration The Opposite Of Compacting A Lawn
Each year we do hundreds of aerations . This process does the opposite of what rolling will do. Aeration is good for a lawn, compaction is bad for a lawn.
Aeration is the process of pulling small plugs of soil out of the lawn which loosens up the lawn. All lawns should be aerated annually.
To fix a bumpy lawn, the best thing to do is to aerate the lawn. The process of aeration will help to create extra space for air, water, and nutrients to filter more easily into the soil. This process not only helps with the overall health of the lawn, but also encourages the bumpy areas in a lawn to even out and settle naturally.
Why Is My Lawn Bumpy
There are a number of reasons why lawns get lumps and bumps in them. The continual freezing and thawing over spring can cause soil to shift unevenly. Wild animals or pets can dig up areas of a lawn. Even walking on it when it is too soft either in the spring or after a very heavy rainfall can cause depressions to form in your lawn. If lumps and bumps in your lawn are concerning you it is best to contact a qualified lawn care specialist near you to diagnosis exactly what the issue is and the best way to deal with it.
Read Also: N Ext Dethatch
To Roll Or Not To Roll
Before we talk about when to roll your lawn, lets look at the arguments against the practice to help us understand when it should be done.
When you roll your lawn, it compacts the ground. Healthy earth is made up of about 50% empty space that is filled with air and allows water to seep through when it rains or when you water your lawn.
When grass grows, the roots grow into these spaces grass roots dont grow into the soil itself. This means if you compact the earth, the roots have nowhere to grow and will struggle to become established. This will result in a less healthy, less hardy lawn.
This can place extra stress on your lawn particularly in spring when your grass is coming into one of the major growing phases of its annual life cycle.
Another issue that is caused by compacted earth is soil runoff. When it rains, the water doesnt penetrate the soil but instead washes off the top layer, carrying away vital nutrients as it goes. This means compacting your soil will also reduce its quality as a home for healthy grass.
A related problem is that if water doesnt penetrate the earth, it will not reach the roots and your grass will not be able to receive the water it needs to live and thrive.
How To Level A Bumpy 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.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 82% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 1,278,011 times.
Bumpy lawns can make it difficult to mow and cause you to trip if you dont watch your step. If you have mounds and pits in your lawn, you can easily flatten and fill them in. Lawn rollers will help make mounds smaller by compacting the soil. You can also use lawn soil to fill in any spots that are too low. When youre finished, youll have a flat, level lawn!
You May Like: Can You Hydroseed Over An Existing Lawn
Is It Good To Roll Your Lawn
Many homeowners will do almost anything to get a green lawn. They will fertilize often, mow often, and can often be seen making minute adjustments to their sprinkler systems often. Dont all of us homeowners have at least one neighbor like that? Many people stress way too much about how to get a gorgeous lawn. Some people believe that rolling your lawn is essential for a smooth look, while others consider it overkill, unnecessary, and even harmful to the lawn. What is the right answer? Should I roll my lawn? The answer is no and yes. Generally, no, dont roll your lawn. But yes, rolling your lawn can be helpful in certain conditions but doesnt need to be done every year. Over rolling can be harmful to your soil.
Why is rolling my lawn bad for it?
This may surprise you, but your soil is made of about 50% open space between particles of dirt. Generally, the open space gets filled with water and air. Grass roots actually grow in the open space between dirt particles not in dirt particles. If you roll your lawn too much, you are compacting the dirt and reducing the space between particles and this takes away the place where grass roots grow, resulting in less healthy grass.
When should I roll my lawn?
What does rolling a lawn do?
What is the best way to roll a lawn?
The bottom line is to avoid rolling because it is almost never a good idea to compact your soil too much. However, rolling can be helpful to your lawn in certain, rare conditions.
How To Aerate Your Lawn
Aerating equipment comes in three main types, from small manual versions to larger tractor-like or pull-behind machinery:
- Spike aerators simply poke a hole down into the soil with a solid, spike-like tine. Some homeowners wear spiked aerator sandals” strapped to their shoes to aerate as they do yard work. While these can help on a small scale, spike machines can make compaction worse by pressing soil together around the holes.1
- Slicing aerators have rotating blades that cut or slice through grass and thatch and down into soil. Like spike aerators, slicing aerators leave soil in the ground, but they create pathways for air, water and nutrients without causing more compaction.
- Core or plug aerators, typically preferred by lawn professionals, use rows of hollow tines that remove plugs of soil from your lawn and deposit them on top, where they break down. The size of the plugs and the holes they create vary in width and depth, depending on the machine used.
You can hire a lawn service to aerate for you or do it yourself like a pro. Equipment rental companies and lawn and garden stores often rent aerator machines and provide basic operating instructions for the model you choose. Aerating is a lot like mowing as you work back and forth across your lawn. Concentrate on any known problem areas, like pet runs or backyard baseball diamonds. Make several passes in different directions to help ensure optimal coverage and benefits.
Also Check: Get Rid Of Old Lawn Mower
What Does Lawn Rolling Do
Aerating our lawns, worm casts and, of particular relevance at this time of year, frosts can all contribute toward making the surface of lawns irregular, and rolling may be one way of correcting this.
But before you begin hauling a roller around your garden, you should take note of a few things. The first is to realise that rolling can only ever correct an irregular lawn, as opposed to an uneven one. Since a medium weight roller will only compress the top few centimetres of the soil, if there are even moderate differences in the level of the lawn, dont expect to fix them in this way top dressing or completely renewing the lawn would both be much better strategies.Another consideration is the soil type. Free draining sandy soils will withstand rolling time and again since their structure makes compaction less of a problem, but rolling clay soil even once could cause the soil to compact, preventing the grass from growing well, inhibiting drainage and requiring a lot of time and effort to put right again. This could be a problem on any soil type if the roller used is too heavy or the soil too damp at the time of rolling.
Are The Alternatives Do I Have To Roll My Lawn To Make It Even
We understand that the main reason people roll a lawn in the first place is to correct a grading issue. Its not fun to ride your mower across the lawn and bump about, nor is it a good idea to brave a twisted ankle obstacle course. There are other ways to address this problem without damaging your lawn by rolling it.
Recommended Reading: Does Lowes Rent Riding Lawn Mowers
Advantages Of Using A Sod Roller
Rolling your sod has a couple of great benefits for your lawn. Arguably the most important benefit is that it helps the roots of the sod come into firm contact with the soil. It tightly presses the sod into the soil, which gives the roots immediate access to moisture. This allows the roots to knit together quickly. It essentially kick-starts the growth process needed for a successful lawn.
A sod roller also helps remove air pockets trapped beneath the sod. Over time, these can result in dead patches as the roots cannot properly form in these pockets. Rolling ensures even growth, and no dead patches!
Rolling also helps your lawn in the long term. It helps to smooth out any unevenness that could occur during the grading stage. If a roller isnt used, the soil underneath becomes soft as it is not compacted properly. This also leads to depressions being made when it is walked upon, leaving you with a bumpy and uneven lawn. These depressions can also make it hard for you to mow your lawn. Save yourself future trouble and use a sod roller!
So Why Shouldnt I Roll My Lawn
First, a roller like the one that the Gnome is using will not do much to flatten the high spots. It will only flatten about a half inch of the soil and it doesnt do anything to fill in the low spots.
What the rolling will do is compact the soil in the vicinity of the root-zone. This is bad for your grass and the root zone.
Compaction does several things to your lawn and none are good. A healthy lawn needs air and water to circulate through the soil and compacted soil reduces this circulation. Compacted soil also makes it harder for roots to grow and spread out in search of water and nutrients.
Drainage issues can also arise when water cannot easily soak into the compacted soil. Heavily compacted soil will sometimes create areas of standing water.
Rolling the lawn, especially in the spring when grass is beginning to come back to life after a long winter, can also harm the grass.
You May Like: How To Kill Creeping Charlie In Lawn
Why Do People Roll Their Lawn
Rolling the lawn is a topic thats argued fiercely within the lawn keeping community.
A healthy lawn will have a lot of air and empty space in it.
Rolling your lawn will compact this space and compress everything into your lawn.
The most common time to roll your lawn is right after seeding.
The compression will firmly press the seeds into the soil, giving them a better chance of germinating and growing.
