by Jack McKinnon

September means lawn care time. It can be warm with cool mornings or downright hot with summery evenings. In any case it is a perfect time to renovate your lawn. More and more people are removing lawn and planting drought-tolerant and native plantings (see tips 8 and 9). This makes for very interesting landscape designs. It also means that the turf that remains can have all the better care because there is less of it. 

Here are the tips.

1. Mow your lawn down as low as your mower will go. This may take several passes, lowering the mower each time. This removes as much of the grass leaves as possible, allowing the thatching and aerating machines (or hand tools) to do their jobs better.

2. Rent or buy a thatching machine. If renting, be sure the machine is clean, or clean it well yourself before using it. Seeds and plant material on a rented or borrowed machine can invade your turf causing quite a mix of grasses in years to come. If you have a small lawn area you might want to use a hand thatcher. This looks like a rake with vertical blades instead of tines.

3. Thatch or rake your whole lawn in one direction only. Rake up the thatch and mow again. Then thatch the lawn again. Continue this process, always going in the same direction, until very little thatch comes up. The effort required depends on the type of turf you have.

4. When the thatching is complete, it is time to aerate the lawn. This is done with a plugging machine or hand plugger. With a hand plugger you remove plugs from the soil by stepping on the tool, pulling it out and repeating this process every few inches. The plugs can be raked up and garden sand raked into the holes or they can be left on the surface to disintegrate.

5. At this point in a lawn renovation reseeding and top dressing can be done to fill in areas that have been scalped or torn up. Also, if there are foreign plants, grasses or weeds in your lawn, this is the time to get them out, reseed (with the same grass that was there originally, tall fescue for most sod lawns) and top dress; this will keep your lawn as much a monoculture as possible.

6. Now apply a well-balanced fertilizer over the whole lawn. There are several brands and types to choose from. Remember, turf likes nitrogen but a balanced fertilizer, whether organic or not, is key to good health. Read the ingredients on the package and do some homework (such as Internet searches) to know what you are getting.

7. Have a consistent watering schedule planned and in place until the rains come. Even then, if it doesn’t rain for three days, continue watering. Baby grass plants dry out fast and you need to treat them with great care for at least six months.

8. If you do not have a lawn and don’t want one, more power to you. Know that your plants will still need some attention regarding cleaning up dead and dying branches, dividing clumping plants, renovating beds, weeding and re-mulching. Also, don’t forget to fertilize; it makes a huge difference.

9. All gardens need attention and constant care. Even cactus and succulent gardens do better with water and fertilizer. A good design, good soil, good plants and good care make a garden that is appealing and functional. It requires an investment of time and money to have a beautiful garden but the satisfaction and increased property value that come with it are fantastic.

Good gardening!

Jack McKinnon is a garden coach and can be reached at jack@jackthegardencoach.com, or call 650-455-0687. Visit his Web site at ww.jackthegardencoach.com.