After winter your lawn needs taking care of urgently if it’s going to be thick and green for the entire summer.  Often it’s already tall and should be mowed as soon as possible after fertilizing. Fertilize it once every several weeks.

A specialized long-term fertilizer for lawns is usually available in granule form and releases its contents gradually.  The fertilizer needs to be broadcast evenly to avoid differences in rate of growth throughout the lawn.  Special fertilizer spreaders can be used for this purpose.  After fertilizing, water your lawn – it’s best to fertilize before a rain.

Let Your Lawn Breathe

If you plan on dethatching your lawn to remove moss and thatch, you should wait for dry weather to do so, since your lawn should be completely dry and as short as possible before this intensive regimen.  The blades of the dethatcher should just scarify the ground so that the roots of the grass are not damaged.  Go over the surface of the lawn lengthwise, then across.  If you don’t use a grass catcher then the thatch that has been combed out of the lawn will need to be raked up afterwards.  Your lawn may look bare afterwards, but with enough fertilizer and watering the bare patches will soon fill in on their own.  Larger bare patches should first be loosened, evened out, and sown with lawn regenerators or overseeders.

What To Do With The Thatch?

It’s amazing just how much a lawn dethatcher can remove.  Lawn thatch can be mixed with yard waste into the compost or spread as a thin layer of mulch over your garden beds.