PREPARE YOUR LAWN FOR SPRING

After a long and harsh winter season, rejuvenating your lawn and landscaping is essential to ensure its health and vitality come spring. Below, is a spring landscaping checklist for North Texas homeowners to prepare their landscapes for the season. This guide includes everything you need, from treating weeds and fertilizing grass to cutting back perennials, ensuring a beautiful and thriving garden in spring.

Lawn Aeration

One effective way to improve your lawn's health after winter is through core aeration in the spring. Aerating your lawn involves removing small plugs of soil, which enhances landscape drainage and promotes deeper grass root growth. You can aerate your lawn every 1-2 years in the spring or as needed. It’s important to leave the biodegradable soil plugs on the lawn, as they will break down in a few weeks and return essential nutrients to the soil.

Mowing the Grass

To prepare your lawn for spring growth, resume biweekly mowing. During the first mow of the season, it’s advisable to bag the grass clippings to prevent thatch buildup. Avoid cutting the grass too short, as this can encourage unwanted weed growth.

Pruning Trees and Shrubs

Once the last winter freeze has passed, which may vary depending on your location in North Texas, lightly prune and shape your trees, shrubs, and plants. Knowing when and how to prune ornamental bushes and trees will ensure they are primed for new growth in the upcoming season. Remove any dead branches or those that hinder new development, such as branches crossing over each other.

Cutting Back Perennial Plants

Many perennials and other winter plants in North Texas go dormant in cold weather. To encourage new growth, it’s important to cut back these perennial plants after the last winter freeze. Most perennials are quite resilient and will rebound effectively even after being trimmed back.

Applying Fertilizers

Granular fertilizers can significantly benefit plants, trees, and grass by promoting spring growth. Use a slow-release granular fertilizer that is high in nitrogen. We recommend Microlife hybrid 20-0-5 or Microlife organic 6-2-4 fertilizers for your grass.

Weed Prevention

To prevent weeds from sprouting on your lawn, apply a pre-emergent organic weed prevention treatment. Ensure the application is well-timed for effective weed control. We suggest using a slow-release organic granular product like corn gluten meal 9-0-0. This corn gluten meal creates a physical barrier over the soil surface to stop weed seed germination while its high nitrogen content helps green up the grass for spring. By following this checklist, you can ensure your landscape is ready to thrive this spring

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Treat or Pull Weeds

One of the most precarious landscaping and lawn care tasks is eliminating weeds. In early spring, you should begin pulling and spot-treating them in your lawn and flower beds. If you treat your weeds without chemicals, horticultural vinegar is available to spot-treat those that have already come to the surface. The reason for using horticultural vinegar is that it contains 20%-30% acetic acid over the 5% acetic acid contained in household vinegar solutions. When doing this, read all instructions carefully and wear protective gloves and goggles when spraying because this higher acidic solution can burn eyes and skin. As noted earlier, horticultural vinegar is a spot treatment for weeds as it burns whatever it comes in contact with. Therefore, spraying it only on unwanted weeds and grass you intend to eradicate is important.

Clean Flower Beds

It’s a good idea to clean and refresh your flower beds at the start of spring. You can easily do this by raking and removing plant and grass clippings and debris from flower beds. Don’t forget to pull weeds and unwelcome grass invading those flower bed areas before planting fresh North Texas spring flowers.

Add Mulch

Starting the new season with fresh mulch in your flower beds is always a good idea. You can do this by installing new hardwood mulch in planting beds as well as tree ring areas. The mulch should be installed to a depth of no more than 2-3 inches. Note that existing hardwood mulch does not need to be removed, as it is biodegradable. Lastly, it is essential to make sure that you are not mounding excess mulch, especially around plants, trees, and next to the house foundation.

Inspect Irrigation System

Just before the spring season begins, ensure your irrigation system is up-to-date and working correctly. You can call a licensed irrigator to inspect your drip irrigation and sprinkler systems. To prepare for spring, adjust the irrigation timer settings, check drip irrigation lines in flower beds and around the foundation, and adjust sprinkler head spray patterns to ensure proper coverage in grass areas.

Resource:

Sol Vida Landscaping

130 N. Preston Rd, Suite 357

Prosper, TX 75078

www.solvidalandscaping.com