While nature has a wild strength, lawns are often far more delicate than people realize. It doesn’t take long for weather, pests, or neglect to inflict severe damage on your well-loved grass. Even if a lawn does get damaged, it can be brought back to life with the proper steps. At Colonial Lawn & Garden, we have provided countless clients with expert landscaping care. Today, we will give you an overview of how one can restore a damaged lawn by sharing our step-by-step approach to lawn restoration, from diagnosing the issue to implementing effective solutions.
3 Steps to Lawn Restoration
Step 1: Identifying the Cause of Lawn Damage:
Before initiating any lawn care treatment, it is vital to identify why your lawn is damaged. Understanding the root cause will aid you in developing a targeted and effective restoration plan.
Most commonly, lawns get damaged due to issues with the soil, lawn diseases, pests, or environmental factors. If you are well-versed in the various issues that contribute to lawn failure, you may be able to identify the underlying cause on your own. However, we also recommend bringing a lawn care expert to be 100% sure!
However, we want to note that there is a difference between dead and dormant grass. Looking quite similar, dead grass will require reseeding and new sod, whereas dormant grass can be revived. Grass typically goes dormant when it doesn’t have suitable conditions to grow, preserving energy until more favorable conditions are available. Often, grass can be triggered to go into dormancy due to drought, poor soil, or extreme temperatures. By performing a tug test or crown test on the grass, you will be able to tell whether it is truly dead or just dormant and waiting to be revived.
Step 2: Restoring a Damaged Lawn through Proper Lawn Care:
Once you have identified the underlying cause of your damaged lawn, you can move forward with lawn restoration treatments. Depending on the trigger, you may need to do one of the following:
Aeration and Soil Improvement:
If your lawn is nutrient deficient or has an imbalanced pH level, aerating the soil and addressing soil improvement are crucial first steps in lawn restoration. First, aeration allows nutrients, water, and oxygen to penetrate deeper into the soil. Then, soil improvement can be addressed by adding various organic and inorganic materials, which will enhance soil structure, nutrient content, and drainage.
Reseeding or Sodding:
Reseeding or sodding is done when your lawn shows signs of thinning, bare patches, or overall poor growth, typically due to compacted soil, thatch buildup, poor soil quality, pest damage, disease, drought, or high foot traffic.
Reseeding involves spreading new grass seed over your lawn to fill in bare areas, improve density, and restore lawn health. On the other hand, sodding involves laying pre-grown grass sod over the soil to create an instant lawn. This is usually recommended if your lawn is beyond quick repair and requires extensive restoration in a short amount of time.
Fertilization and Watering:
Fertilization and watering are essential to maintaining a healthy lawn, especially when implementing lawn restoration. Fertilization helps restore a lawn after it has experienced seasonal stress, nutrient deficiency, soil pH imbalance, or any kind of pest, disease, or compaction trauma.
Strategic watering, when combined with fertilization, ensures that grass roots have enough moisture to absorb the nutrients from the soil and fertilizer. Without proper watering, fertilizing techniques are useless, so it is crucial to set up a proper watering system.
Weed and Pest Control:
A lawn can become overwhelmed by weeds and pests quickly. Weeds compete with grass for nutrients, water, and sunlight, while pests can damage the roots and overall turf health. Often, weeds and pests get out of control due to a lack of proper lawn care maintenance, over- or under-watering, or if the lawn becomes thin or patchy, as the grass lacks the resilience to fend both off.
Fortunately, weed and pest control can be managed efficiently by implementing a schedule of manual weed removal, pre-emergent application, and pest control treatments.
Step 3: Maintenance After Restoration:
Once your lawn has been restored, you certainly want to keep it that way. To keep the efforts of a lawn restoration intact, it requires seasonal lawn care that considers every aspect, from mowing to the right height to picking up leaves.
For a complete guide on proper seasonal maintenance, check out our blog, Seasonal Lawn Treatment: Preparing Your Lawn for Each Season, to learn more!
Unfortunately, seasonal lawn care practices can be hard to fit into a busy schedule. No one wants to spend every weekend mowing, pulling weeds, or spraying pest treatments. That’s where professional lawn maintenance can come into play.
At Colonial Lawn and Garden, we offer ongoing maintenance services to help homeowners keep their lawns healthy and vibrant long after the initial restoration. From fertilization to grub control, our Lawn Care Program will ensure you can enjoy your lawns without having to sacrifice your precious time.
Benefits of Professional Lawn Restoration:
If your property needs lawn restoration, you may be thinking about how you will DIY all these tasks on your own. While possible, there are superior advantages of using a professional lawn care service like Colonial Lawn and Garden for lawn restoration. Not only do you get to take advantage of the local expertise of a highly trained team, but you also get customized solutions based on your unique needs.
At Colonial Lawn and Garden, we provide long-term solutions to ensure the restored lawn remains healthy and resilient. We follow the same three-step system we just shared with you. You will identify the root cause of your lawn’s suffering, offer customized solutions based on the need found, and then implement those solutions for you. You will see your lawn beautiful once again without having to lift a finger!
Don’t let a damaged lawn ruin your outdoor space. Call Colonial Lawn and Garden now to learn how we can help restore your lawn to its full potential.
