Australian Lawn Care Calendar for all 4 Seasons
If you’re like most Aussies, you love your yard and want to keep it looking great throughout the year. However, there is more to caring for your lawn than simply setting your sprinklers on a timer and mowing once a week. What needs to be done changes with each season, so you need to stay on top of it to keep your lawn looking its best. Here’s what you need to do:
Summer Lawn Care
When mowing your lawn during the summer, try not to cut it too short. You want to keep some length on it. Not only will this be much more comfortable underfoot for all those BBQs you’ll be throwing, but it also provides a bit of shade for the soil underneath, meaning that it won’t dry out as fast and you’ll need to water it less.
Because the heat and constant sunlight can be a bit of a drain on your lawn, you’ll want to fertilise early on in the summer. This will give your lawn the strength it needs to make it through this difficult season.
Pro Tip: Never mow more than one-third of the length of your grass in one go. This can traumatise your lawn, causing it to become sparse and patchy.
Autumn Lawn Care
As the weather begins to cool during autumn, you’ll want to mow your lawn a bit less. Aim to keep its height somewhere between 50 and 70 millimetres. This will maximise the surface area so that it can soak up as much sun as possible in preparation for winter.
Be sure to fertilise your lawn around Easter. This way, there will still be enough warmth to allow the fertiliser to get to work, but it will be close enough to winter to help your lawn survive the colder months.
Pro Tip: Check your soil’s pH in autumn. Around 6.5 is best. If yours is higher, treat it with Sulphate of Ammonia. Dolomite Lime can be used to treat low pH.
Winter Lawn Care
Winter is a great time to aerate your lawn, especially if your soil is of the hard, clay type. This helps to make it easier for oxygen, as well as water, to get into your soil and into your lawn. Aerating should typically be done twice a year. You can do it manually with aeration boots, or you can buy/hire an aeration machine.
Pro Tip: Save money on aeration by doing it yourself. If your lawn area is on the smaller side, you can aerate it simply by inserting a fork into the soil and wiggling it around a bit. Repeat every few centimetres.
Spring Lawn Care
Take some time in spring to monitor the condition of your soil. If there is too much heavy clay in it, you can break it up with gypsum and thorough aeration. If your soil is too sandy, on the other hand, a soil wetting agent can help it to retain more moisture. You may wish to check your soil’s pH again as you did in autumn.
Pro Tip: Give your lawn a deep soak about once a week. This will encourage the roots to grow deeper into the soil so that your lawn will be better equipped to handle the hottest and driest of summer days.
Make Sure You Have Top-Notch Equipment
To make your job easier, it helps to have great lawn care equipment. You can find everything you need to care for your lawn throughout the year at Beacon Equipment. We carry a wide range of yard equipment from some of the top manufacturers, including Stihl, John Deere and more. Browse through our selection today to find the perfect yard equipment to meet your needs.