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A Lawn Care Workout Routine for a Healthy Lawn and a Healthy You
Now that the warmer weather is here, it is the perfect time to look at implementing a lawn care workout routine that works for both you and your lawn! In this blog, we take a look at a range of activities that will not only help you get fit but help your lawn get in its best shape for the warmer months ahead.
Getting the Right Nutrients
In some ways, we are just like our lawns! Just as we need the right nutrients to fuel our bodies and nourish us, so do our lawns. When looking at what fertilisers to use for your lawn, look for a fertiliser that has a well-rounded base of nutrients. For fertilising your turf, we recommend using our Lawn Solutions Premium Fertiliser. Our fertiliser has a balanced NPK ratio (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) aka the macronutrients your lawn needs of 16 – 0.7 – 4 and contains beneficial trace elements, including Sulphur, Calcium, and Iron.
Now that we have nutrients looked after let’s look at a few workouts that can get you and your lawn in shape.
How to Aerate Your Lawn
Aerating your lawn is a great way to help improve the performance of your lawn. It will help open the soil profile to allow for more air, water and nutrients to reach down into the soil profile. But did you know that the movement required to drive your garden fork or tyne aerator into the ground can help build muscle, including several back muscles, shoulders, arms, and legs.
To aerate your lawn with a garden fork or tyne aerator, drive the fork into the lawn and wriggle it back and forth to help fracture up the soil profile.
If you want to make aerating your area a bit easier or if your soil is particularly compacted, give your lawn a good water a day or two before aerating to help make the soil softer.
Mowing
If you want to improve your cardio skills, mowing your lawn is a great way to help you get your steps in for the day. A self-propelled mower can make mowing an easier task, but if you have the mower disengaged or are using a mower without a self-propelled function, it can increase the intensity of your lawn care workout.
When it comes to mowing and improving your health, consistency is key. The more frequently you mow your lawn, the healthier it will become.
Weed Removal
Another great way to help get your cardio in for the day is to get on top of weeds in your lawn. When it comes to most weed types, you can simply remove them by hand.
A walking lunge will allow you to both reach down to the grass to pull weeds out from your lawn but also target most major muscle groups in your lower body. Another great lawn care workout exercise that you can use is a walking sumo squat. This will target your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves.
If you want to incorporate more upper body muscles when removing weeds, you can even incorporate an army crawl, but you might want only to do this in the backyard away from your neighbours to avoid a few possible stares.
If you are after more lawn care tips and advice to get your lawn in shape for the warmer months ahead, check out our spring lawn care blog here.
Have you always wondered how patterns and stripes are mown into lawns? In this blog, we’ll walk you through how it is done and show you how to create a few different patterns as well.
Before you get started…
A healthy, thick, and lush lawn will be able to show better stripes and patterns than a thin and sparse lawn. So, the first step is to ensure your lawn is in good health. If you are in need of some tips on getting your lawn on the mend, check out our blog here.
It is also worth checking your mower blades and ensuring they are nice and sharp for a cleaner cut. The cleaner the cut – the nicer the lawn will look. If you are using a cylinder mower, you may need to look at backlapping your mower to sharpen your blades. For more information on how to do this, check out our backlapping blog here. For a rotary mower, depending on the condition of your existing blades, you can look at either sharpening your mowers blades or replacing them – more information on sharpening and replacing mower blades here.
What equipment do I need to mow stripes in my lawn?
Usually, a cylinder mower with an inbuilt heavy roller is usually the best way to achieve stripes in your lawn. As cylinder mowers provide a cleaner cut compared to other mowers, they will cut the leaf rather than tearing it. The heavy roller will be able to bend the leaf of your grass. If the leaf is bent towards you, it will look darker and if the blades of grass are bent in the opposite direction it will appear lighter.
How to achieve lawn stripes with a rotary mower
Stripes and patterns can also be achieved with a rotary mower, but a roller attachment to your mower will be required to bend the grass. Using a roller attachment like the Toro Lawn Striping System is ideal.
Three mowing patterns you can try in your lawn
Now we are on to the fun part! We are going to take a look at how to mow three different patterns: stripes, checkers, and crisscross’.
How to mow stripes in your lawn?
To mow stripes, start off by mowing your first stripe along the edge of your lawn. When mowing your first stripe, try to mow in a straight line as this will be used as a guide for the rest of your lawn. On your next line, mow in the opposite direction along the edge of where you have just gone over. Repeat this process and continue to change direction.
Once you are finished, if you really want to help get your stripes to stand out, do a few passes over the lawn (known as double cutting or triple cutting) to push the grass right down and give it a really high-quality cut. Repeatedly mowing your lawn in the same directions should also help make your stripes more vivid over time. Just be sure to mix your mowing directions up from time to time when you are not striping to ensure ruts don’t develop in your lawn.
How do I mow checkers in my lawn?
The first step to mowing checkers is to mow stripes from left to right across your lawn. After this is completed, mow stripes going up and down across your lawn to create the checker effect. Follow the numbered steps for mowing stripes followed by the below letters.
How do I mow a crisscross pattern into my lawn?
For a crisscross pattern, instead of mowing up and down, you will need to mow diagonally across your area. Firstly, follow the numbers outlined below, then the letters. It can take a bit of practice to get your stripes straight. However, once you nail it, your lawn is sure to stand out on the street.
If you are wanting to take your lawn to the next level and mow a diamond pattern in your lawn, check out this video by Big League Lawns on YouTube.
Want to know some insider knowledge on how the turf professionals keep their grass in tip-top condition? In this blog, we catch up with three industry leaders within the turf world and hear some of their advice on how to take your lawn to the next level.
Joe Rogers – Lawn Solutions Business Development Manager
Lawn Tip 1. Mow Regularly
By mowing regularly, you can help promote lateral growth and encourage your lawn to form a tighter growth habit. This makes your turf more wear tolerant, more aesthetically pleasing and helps it naturally choke out weeds. The main reason why golf courses and sporting fields look fantastic is they are mown 2-3 times per week. By mowing frequently, you can drastically improve the look of any lawn quickly.
Lawn Tip 2. Be Disciplined in Your Approach to Fertility
Whether or not you are fertilising with up-front nitrogen every six to eight weeks or using a controlled-release product with more P & K & trace elements every six months, it is important to ensure you have discipline with your application. This includes ensuring timing is regular and as per the recommendations and ensuring you stick to label rates. Chemical companies put a lot of effort into ensuring label information is correct, so it is best you follow it.
Lawn Tip 3. Embrace Technology
New turf types and lawn care products are coming to the market regularly. Instead of avoiding them, use them as they will provide many benefits to your lawn. New turf types like TifTuf Hybrid Bermuda and Sir Grange Zoysia require less inputs to produce better results. New turf care products have lower active ingredients, require fewer products and are safer to apply both for you and the environment. So rather than keeping to the same products that you have used for years, keep an eye on new and emerging technology to use it for your advantage.
Simon Adermann – Lawn Solutions National Manager
Lawn Tip 1. Ensure Mower Has Sharp Blades
When mowing with blunt blades, bruising can occur to the leaf tips and a clean cut isn’t achieved. At the start of each spring, replace or sharpen blades ready for the growing season ahead.
Lawn Tip 2. Soil Analysis
Getting the peak performance from your turf, or if your turf isn’t performing a soil analysis, is recommended in spring. With results and recommendations, you can then find the right nutrient balance for your soil to ensure your turf is healthy and get the most out of your fertiliser applications.
Lawn Tip 3. Water Management
Water management is critical during extended periods of dry weather. Using water-efficient turfgrass is the key; however, soil can become hydrophobic and water won’t penetrate well. Wetting agents like Lawn Soaker are a key solution for water management and will allow even water movement through the soil profile. This will improve water efficiency and help with evenness of colour and growth of your lawn.
Lawn Soaker
Michael Sutton – AusGAP Program Manager
Lawn Tip 1. Understanding Nutritional Value
It is important to have a basic understanding of what you are using and what will be the nutritional value it will have to the plant and/or soil. This way, you can help ensure your lawn isn’t getting too much of one nutrient and isn’t deficient of another. By understanding what to use and when, you can help deter other issues like disease.
Lawn Tip 2. Understanding the Site You Are Going to Turf
By understanding your site, if you want to install turf, you can then make a better decision of what varieties will be suitable for the area. Some main areas to look into include how many hours of direct light the lawn will receive, the existing soil type (and if amendments need to be made prior to installing turf) and who will be using the lawn.
Lawn Tip 3. Identifying Underlying Issues In Order to Treat and Address Any Ongoing Issues
So often we see people throwing a heap of expensive products at their lawns without getting to the cause of the problem, often making the issue worse or leading to wasted product and money. So, it is best to identify the problem, identify the solution and execute a treatment plan. If in doubt, consult with an expert.
For more lawn care tips and advice on how to improve your lawn, make sure you check out our YouTube Channel here.
