Seeing spots usually happens when you’re dizzy. Seeing blotches is typically only done in a psychiatrist’s office when you’re identifying what you make of ink blots. And seeing thinning or bare areas … well, hopefully you don’t have to see those on the top of your head.
All of these things you might find in life, but there’s one place you certainly shouldn’t find them: in our lawn.
An ugly, unattractive, sloppy looking lawn can be extremely frustrating. Every time you look outside, you might feel bad that none of your efforts to fix your lawn have worked. Every time you pull into your driveway, you might feel frustrated at how your unkempt, weedy lawn makes your property look. Every time you take the dog out or play with the kids outdoors, you might just shake your head in disgust at your bare-spotted grass.
Whether you feel you’ve put in tons of work that hasn’t made a dent in your lawn’s improvement or whether you’ve been so busy you’ve neglected it’s care, you might even feel like your lawn is beyond repair at this point. What can you do?
If you’re lamenting over the state of your lawn, you might be wondering what you can do. Fixing it may seem like an impossible task at this point.
While there’s no one instant way to turn your lawn around overnight, there are steps you can take to repair your lawn’s patches, spots, splotches, blemishes, and bare areas, as well as eliminate weeds. You just need to know the right processes to follow and have a little bit of patience. Your thick, green lawn is waiting at the end of this journey.
Let’s look at the right ways to fix a lawn in Northern Virginia so you aren’t left feeling bad about how your lawn looks again.
What is An Ugly Lawn?
As we dive into how to fix an ugly lawn, first let’s define what an ugly lawn is.
Your lawn can be suffering through various stages of nasty appearances. Maybe, for instance, it just needs a bit of help; it’s color is off perhaps, or it may have some weed issues and look a bit thin. Or maybe your lawn has quite a few bare spots and seems to be struggling with consistent weed problems. The worst case scenario is the lawn that has more bare spots and weeds than healthy grass. It may even need a complete renovation.
Depending on your lawn’s state, transformation could take just a few treatments or a year or two.
5 Tips to Fixing a Lawn
As you go about assessing the state of your grass, you may not know what you need to do to fix a lawn.
How much time will the process take? What if you make the wrong choices? What if doing certain things lengthens the time it takes for you to make your lawn better? What if you make it worse?
The whole process can feel quite overwhelming, especially when all you want to do is repair your lawn with as few headaches and stress as possible.
We get it. Having a relaxing yard and a lawn to enjoy shouldn’t have to be such a time-consuming, troublesome experience.
No matter the level of repair your lawn needs, most of these steps can do wonders for repairing any Northern Virginia lawn.
Tip #1: Aerate your Lawn
Your lawn might be lacking in color and suffering overall because it’s congested and lacking air.
When a lawn becomes overly compact, it can’t breathe. It’s almost like suffocation; oxygen and nutrients can’t reach its roots.
The solution to this is lawn aeration. Using a machine called an aerator, aeration is the process of removing small plugs of soil from your lawn and letting them fall back onto the grass to break down. This breaks up compaction and adds organic matter to your lawn’s soil as well.
Aeration repairs your lawn by allowing oxygen, nutrients, and water to reach your lawn’s root zone, where it’s needed most. This also enables your roots to grow deeper, leading to a thicker, greener, healthier lawn.
Tip #2: Overseed your Lawn
Seeding your lawn is a way to help fill in those bare spots and thicken it back up.
The best time to do this is immediately after aeration. This enables more precise seed to soil contact. What does that mean? Seed needs to be present in moist soil for them to germinate and turn into grass blades. After aeration you’ve created these pockets that are perfect for seeds to nestle in.
We like to perform aeration and overseeding in the fall in Northern Virginia, since the weather conditions are ideal for growing healthy grass. Proper timing is essential to fix a lawn since it increases the odds that your new grass seeds will survive, grow, and thrive.
Tip #3: Topdressing
After aeration and overseeding are performed, there’s a third service that makes up this powerhouse trio of services that repair your lawn: topdressing.
Topdressing is added to mix with your existing soil, that is usually predominantly clay-based, to improve your overall soil structure. Better soil will always result in better grass.
Tip #4: Proper Lawn Maintenance
Now that you’ve gone through the most important steps in fixing your bad lawn, you want to maintain it properly to ensure it continues to grow thick and green.
This is incredibly important to fix a lawn because you don’t want to invest in lawn improvements and then ignore your lawn, ending up back where you started: a lawn riddled with problems.
Ongoing lawn care includes:
- Conducting a soil test to ensure your lawn is at the proper pH to grow healthy and absorb nutrients. If your pH isn’t in the optimum range between 6 and 7, lime applications can help correct acidic soil.
- Add proper nutrients through fertilization that is based on your soil test results. This ensures your lawn receives the nutrients it’s lacking. Fertilization is best done starting in spring, continuing at regular intervals through the year and into fall. Spring fertilization is important for top growth, while fall fertilization is essential for root growth.
- Target weeds that get through with pre-emergent and post-emergent weed control. Since weeds compete with healthy grass for water and nutrients, you want to keep them away. Knowing what weeds infest your lawn most and the optimal timing of treatment for each one can help you better control weeds.
- Mow your grass regularly during the growing season so you’re never removing more than one-third of a grass blade at any one time. OPtimal length is between 3 and 4 inches; cutting your grass lower than this will stress it out and could cause problems, such as discoloration. Remember to sharpen your mower blades regularly for a clean cut.
- Water your lawn with about 1 inch of water weekly. Never under-water or overwater your lawn to avoid stress or disease pressure.
Tip #5: Bring in the Right Lawn Care Professional To Repair Your Lawn
When these lawn care services are performed properly, taking into account the specifics of your lawn issues and problems, a great-looking lawn should be the end result.
There are certain nuances with timing and knowledge about the blemishes facing your lawn that help refine the fix. And this is where finding the right lawn care professional to fix a lawn is essential, especially if you feel like everything you’ve tried yourself isn’t working.
The right lawn care professional for you will come and assess your lawn, conduct a soil test, and provide you with a complete lawn care repair and maintenance plan, answering all your questions along the way. As you watch them take care of your lawn, you also get to enjoy the transformation of your lawn from ugly to beautiful, which is always a great sight to behold.
Let Turf’s Up Teach You How to Fix an Ugly Lawn in Northern Virginia
Whether you have a lawn that needs just some sprucing up or one that needs a total makeover, you certainly don’t want to suffer any longer with a lawn that doesn’t suit your needs and lifestyle and makes you feel miserable every time you look at it.
You might have a tough time taking care of your lawn and lack the time, education, and resources necessary to get the job done correctly or as often as it’s needed. Or maybe you just haven’t worked with a company that seems to know what they are doing, and your lawn is suffering as a result.
We know how frustrating this can be. Some lawn care repairs can feel like it dominates all of your time, money, and waking thoughts. But it shouldn't have to be that way.
To repair your lawn, all you need are the right steps – and if you don’t have the time – the right lawn care service partner, to ensure you get exactly the results you’re seeking.
Turf’s Up would love to be your lawn care company of choice in Northern Virginia. We take tending lawns very seriously. We don’t want to waste our time or yours. We know lawn issues in this area and how to fix a lawn the right way the first time.
We can take on your lawn care and give you that entertainment and relaxation space you’ve always dreamed of in your yard with limited stress and worry. Then all you need to do is sit back and enjoy the lush, green lawn that elevates your property value as well as your outdoor happiness.
Ready to learn why Turf’s Up could be your totally awesome choice for lawn care services in Gainesville, Haymarket, and Warrenton, VA? We’re stoked to learn more about you and help you have the best lawn on the block. Get started today with a free quote. Together, we can prepare a customized plan that is perfect for you and your lawn.
