Grass Lawn Maintenance - Make a Yard this Spring

A lawn is a must. It keeps the place clean for one thing. It provides a frame for the garden picture for another. Without a lawn, it isn’t a home.

Your first encounter with soil is likely to be discouraging. An accepted practice in the building industry, approved by apathy on the part of gardening authorities, is to strip a new building site of all soil before the foundation is dug. This is then sold as “rich black dirt” to other new home owners, who have discovered they can’t grow anything on the stiff subsoil left by their speculative builder.

True, the custom is to spread not more than an inch of the black soil over the subsoil to hide the larceny, but this is not enough for a garden. If only subsoil clay or gravel was left behind, the new owner is lucky. Sometimes large chunks of old mortar and other debris are concealed by a thin veneer of fill.

What is Underneath

The first step in getting ready is to take a spade and dig a few holes about a foot deep to see what is underneath. Start near the foundation, since debris is usually buried as close to the foundation as possible. If large chunks of solid material are found, better try to dig them out. You won’t locate all of them, but the rest will show up as dead patches in the lawn when the grass fails to grow in the spots where they were not buried deeply. If a foot or more below the surface, they won’t do any harm.

The next step depends on whether or not the down payment left you any money. If the pocketbook is flat, you can make a lawn on the raw clay or sterile sand dug from the foundation. It won’t cost as much as doing it the right way, but more time will be needed to produce a good lawn. lf that’s your situation, start by spreading 40 pounds of a good mixed garden fertilizer (sold under various brand names at garden-supply and hardware stores) to every 1,000 square feet of lawn (say a strip 10 feet wide and 100 feet long). If you can afford it, you can improve this soil by adding peatmoss, old manure or other forms of organic matter.

Next, try to locate someone who will do rotary tilling by the hour or job. A rotary tiller has teeth or tines that whirl around rapidly and will mix the fertilizer into the soil. Tell him to set the teeth to go down 4 inches, no more. Grass roots don’t penetrate any farther. If you go too deep, the soil will have to settle that much more, which means more chance for an irregular surface.

Level the Soil

The next step is to level the soil. Your lawn ought to be as flat as possible, except that it should have a slight fall so excess rainfall will drain away.

Making a lawn on sharper slopes is not a problem for the beginner: he’ll have to pay for professional help.

To get an even, level surface is not too easy. A simple device is to use one section of an extension ladder as a drag. A rope is tied to the top and the bottom rung of the ladder, so that it can be dragged sideways across the loose soil. When high spots are encountered, the excess soil goes between the rungs and is dragged along until a low spot is reached. Then it dumps and fills the hollow. I have seen such a drag level a newly tilled lawn as perfectly as expensive professional equipment. When level, you are ready to sow. But what?

Unfortunately, the traditional date for taking over new houses is spring, usually about May 1st. By the time the family is unpacked. it is mid-June, too late in most areas for sowing grass seed.

Now the new home owner comes up against an important fact. No single recommendation can be made for lawns that will apply to all parts of the country.

North of the Ohio River and east of a line drawn from St. Paul to Kansas City, no attempt should be made to sow a permanent lawn at this time. I would recommend seeding with ryegrass. Don’t spend extra money for perennial rye seeds: you will be digging under the grass before winter.

Why Sow a Temporary Grass

But why sow a temporary grass to dig under? First, it will grow and produce tops and roots that when dug under will rot and lighten that heavy soil, and give body to light sands. Organic matter is the key to good soils. Second, even though it is rough and poor in color, rye-grass will keep dust from blowing, and make a fair show of green for you all summer.

Sow about 5 pounds to every 1,000 square feet of lawn. Don’t try to cover the seed, but keep it moist every minute until it sprouts, even if this means turning on the sprinklers every day.

Start cutting the rye-grass as soon as it is 3 inches tall. Don’t rake the clippings. but let them remain to return to the soil as organic matter. About August 1st over the area north of the Ohio River, all this work is going to be wasted—apparently. Now you are ready to put in a permanent lawn. The rye-grass you worked on so hard will have to be rotary-tilled or dug under, again to a depth of 4 inches. Use 25 pounds per 1.000 square feet of the same fertilizer you applied over the soil after turning under the old grass. Wet thoroughly, let it stand for a day or two and then rake or drag the surface level again.

The best time to seed a lawn in this area is mid-August, and not later than September 15th. The reason is that grass seeds sprout rapidly when they are warm during the day and somewhat cooler at night. The common lawn weeds, on the other hand, don’t like cool nights and their seeds refuse to sprout.

For the experienced lawn maker, perhaps the best grass for the area we are discussing is one of the improved bluegrasses. Unfortunately, it is a slow starter, and the beginning lawn maker finds the control of weeds and the lack of a solid green cover discouraging. For this reason, I would mix it or blend it with another seed. The bluegrass will take its time. but by the second or third year, it will probably have taken over the entire lawn.

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