Five Important Tips to Keep Your Yard Healthy

Table of Contents

1. Tips For Maintaining Your Yard[+]
   1. Study Your Soil
   2. Timing Matters
   3. Feed Plants with Fertilizers
   4. Keep Grass Green
   5. Removing the Excess

A yard is definitely one of those additions that add immeasurable value to your home. Not only does it increase the value of your property, but it also helps in giving you an open space to hang out without leaving your home.

As well, a healthy yard can have benefits for your physical and mental health. A study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology revealed that sitting or walking in your yard for as little as five minutes per day can significantly boost your mood.

However, having a yard, more specifically a healthy and aesthetically pleasing one, does require some effort on your part.

Consistency and being proactive when it comes to the maintenance of your yard ensure that this space stays looking nice all the time. Here are also some tips that you can follow in order to have a well-maintained yard.

Tips For Maintaining Your Yard

Study Your Soil

One of the most important things that you need to have so that your garden will thrive is good soil. As such, it also follows that you need to understand the kind of soil that your garden has; this way, you will know the exact methods to improve or make the most out of it.

Knowing the type of soil that you have in your garden will also help guide you in determining what kinds of plants would best thrive in it.

Succulents, for example, thrive in dry, sandy soil, while a lot of blooming plants like daffodils and roses do well in silt soil, which provides adequate water retention and air circulation.

Aside from the type of soil, you also need to understand your garden’s soil’s pH level. Your garden’s soil pH level significantly influences nutrient absorption and, therefore, plant growth.

There are test kits for this, and there are also labs where you can send samples of your soil so you can get a more detailed analysis.

Timing Matters

When it comes to maintaining your yard, you need to understand when to clean and when to leave things be. A lot of aspects of yard maintenance rely on proper planning and scheduling for them to fully work.

For example, you might want to wait for significantly dryer weather, ideally with temperatures reaching 40 or 50 degrees, before removing dead leaves or cutting down perennial stems.

Waiting for warmer weather can ensure that pollinators and other beneficial insects can do their job in helping your plants bloom.

When it comes to unwanted plants, however, acting immediately is important.

Invasive or aggressive weeds will get worse as summer approaches, as this gives them sufficient time to strengthen their roots, making them more difficult to remove.

The same goes for harmful vines that can damage trees in your garden if not removed immediately.

Feed Plants with Fertilizers

Another thing that you need to carefully study is the type of fertilizers that you use. Fertilizers play an important role in supplementing nutrients in the soil that are absorbed by plants.

However, not all fertilizers are the same, and using the incorrect type or the wrong amount can have negative effects on your plants.

For example, synthetic fertilizers, when used incorrectly, can burn your lawn and your plants.

Meanwhile, organic fertilizers, especially ones that are made at home, can be tricky to use as well as some of these can contain harmful amounts of salts that can damage your plants.

As such, whether you are using organic or synthetic fertilizers, the important thing to remember is to fully know what it is made of as well as how much of it must be used.

Keep Grass Green

One of the things that are immediately associated with having a lawn is grass. Lawn grass is one of the primary aesthetics of your garden, and it also helps in oxygen production and carbon retention.

However, keeping lawn grass green is relatively challenging, especially if you don’t do regular lawn maintenance. As such, it is important to regularly mow your lawn.

Experts suggest that lawn mowing should be done every two weeks at the minimum in summer, especially if the grass in your lawn is of the popular varieties, such as buffalo or couch grass.

When it comes to watering lawn grass, it is ideal for giving it a good soak occasionally instead of frequently watering it.

Experts suggest following a soak cycle that would eventually lead up to the recommended 1 ½ inches of water per week.

This helps in developing a soil condition that allows grass to have stronger roots. It would also be beneficial to fertilize lawn grass, ideally around five to six times per year.

Removing the Excess

Performing plant maintenance is another key task when you want to have a healthy yard.

Deadheading and pruning your plants are important methods that require you to remove some parts of your existing plants to encourage growth.

Deadheading, for example, removes old flower blooms to give way to new buds. Pruning, meanwhile, removes branches of plants to control growth.

The general rule of thumb when it comes to deadheading and pruning is to immediately remove dead, damaged, or diseased stems from your plants as these can attract insects and would only encourage plant diseases to fully develop.

Then, the rest of your deadheading and pruning schedule should depend on the plants you own. For instance, early spring bloomers such as lilac or forsythia should be pruned in late spring after they have finished blooming.

Meanwhile, summer-blooming trees like crape myrtle should be pruned in winter or early spring.

All of these might seem like too much work. After all, having a well-maintained yard takes effort and careful study.

However, a beautiful garden does have innumerable benefits not only to your house but to your own well-being, too. Besides, all these steps should not take away the joy of gardening, too.

By being consistent and proactive, you will definitely reap the priceless benefits of having beautiful greenery as soon as you step out of your house.

Thank you for reading!