Don’t cross your eyes, they’ll get stuck that way!
Don’t swim after eating, you’ll drown!
Five second rule! You can eat that even though it fell on the floor.
We’re all familiar with myths, old wives’ tales, urban legends, and other nuggets of misinformation buried deep in our brains thanks to childhood admonitions and pop cultural conditioning. You may think you have a good grip on these things, but did you know that there are lawn care myths as well? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Keep reading to learn some common misconceptions about lawn care and the myth-busting answers you need to have the best yard on the block.
Lawn Care Myths: Busted!
To have a lush, healthy lawn, you should water every day.
Do you know what’s not an old wives’ tale? “Quality over quantity.” That old axiom applies to almost everything, including watering your lawn. Many homeowners think that the key to a beautiful green lawn is daily watering, but it’s actually better to give your yard a deep soak every other day than to check off the box on your to-do list with a cursory watering.
It’s also very important what time of day you water the grass. The ideal window is between 5 am and 10 am, so the grass is able to absorb the water during the hottest part of the day. The sunshine will help out by evaporating what isn’t absorbed, so moisture can’t sit there and create rot or fungal infection.
A big chop will reduce how often you need to mow your grass.
Sorry, but setting your lawn mower blade extra short will not reduce the frequency with which you need to mow your grass. Not only is it a myth that cutting your grass shorter will reduce how often you have to mow it, but it can also damage your lawn! Cutting the grass too short exposes the roots to too much heat from the sun; this can cause the grass to turn brown, and also allow weeds to creep in because you weekend the grass they normally have to compete with.
You should seed in the spring.
When to seed grass is highly specific to climate and grass variety, so seeding in the spring is not always the best option. Some grasses, like fescue, need time to get established before they’re capable of surviving a sweltering summer. Planting in the fall allows them to mature a bit before the hardest part of the year.
You can aerate your lawn just as well by walking around in spiked shoes.
Sure, you could purchase some goofy-looking footwear and try your hand (or rather, foot) at aerating your lawn, but most of the spiked aeration shoes sold are not nearly as effective as using a core aerator. That’s because the shoes are “solid tined” — they’re really just nails poking into the soil. In order to aerate 5% or more of the ground surface as needed to elicit any benefits, you need to use hollow tines. You can tell when a yard has been core aerated because you’ll see little plugs of earth lying around; these are the result of pressing a hollow tine into the ground, which fills with earth and is removed, displacing it.
We offer core aeration as a service to our clients here at Redline Landscapes, as well as a full array of residential lawn care services and tree pruning. Check out our portfolio to see how we can help you keep your Cobb, Cherokee, or Paulding County landscaping healthy and beautiful!
