Weekly Lawn Maintenance
Coming home to a well-maintained lawn is an enjoyable feeling.

Our weekly maintenance includes the following:

• keeping your lawn cut and well trimmed
• edging of all sidewalks every week
• blowing off of all hardscape area including all walkways, patios, decks, driveway and curbs.

Every week the blades of our machines are removed and replaced with a fresh set of newly sharpened blades. This practice helps ensure your grass remains healthy and strong. Dull blades tear and stress grass blades, thereby increasing the potential for disease and infestation. Sharp blades cut cleaner and easier leaving your lawn healthier and better looking.

Every week we change the direction of the stripe in your cut. We work on a four-stripe system, rotating a different direction each week to create that "baseball field look".

The full width on the back of the mower deck bends the grass in the direction you are traveling. The light and dark stripes are created by the way light reflects off the grass. A light-colored strip is made by mowing away from you, and a dark strip by mowing towards you. When you mow a light strip in your lawn and turn around to come back the other way, the strip you just mowed will look dark.

Despite popular belief, grass clipping do not contribute to unwanted thatch. Grass clippings are the perfect fertilizer for your lawn. Grass clippings are full of nutrients and organic matter that is able to boost soil fertility up to 30 percent. They also return moisture to your soil and shade it from the drying rays of the sun.

Top of page

Deluxe Maintenance
Keeping your beds weed free and your mulch turned over is key to keeping your entire property looking its best.

Tired of trying to keep up with the weeds in your beds?

Now, with our deluxe maintenance program you no longer have to worry about breaking your back weeding your beds. It will already be worked into your weekly lawn maintenance schedule. Each week besides the standard maintenance we will also maintain all the beds on your property. We will make sure to keep the weeds out and the mulch turned over to always maintain a fresh look.

Top of page

Aeration
Aerating may be the single most important thing you can do for your grass.

Your soil is an ecological environment in which your lawn lives. Roots need moisture, oxygen, space and proper nutrients to grow. Grass that grows in healthy soil requires less watering, fertilizing and upkeep and is far more tolerant of abuse.

Good aeration breaks and loosens the soil to a depth a 2 to 3 inches producing finger size holes, spaced at 8-12 holes per square foot. These holes encourage deep root growth by allowing water, oxygen, and organic matter to quickly reach lower root zones.

We have invested in the Hooker brand soft plug aerator in order to provide you with the most advanced aerating process available. It lifts and loosens the soil, inflicting less stress on the roots. Unlike core aeration, the Hooker eliminates subsurface compaction around and at the bottom of the holes.

The Hooker uses a series of specially shaped tines that pierce and hook under the soil. Each tine lifts a soft plug of dirt to the surface while loosening the surrounding soil. The soft plugs of soil disperse quickly, spreading nutrients over the surface. No unsightly hard plugs of soil accumulate on your lawn and the finger size holes remain. The Hooker aeration process leaves your lawn looking its best, even immediately after aerating.

We recommend aerating once in late spring when the grass is actively growing. For clay or compacted soil, aerate twice per year. Once in late spring, and again in the fall.

Top of page

Fertilizing
We are very proud to announce our new organic-based fertilizer program! Safety is very important to all of us, especially when children and pets are involved. We have decided to change our fertilizing program to better fit the needs of our clients as well as the environment by switching to organic-based fertilizers.

There is no substitute for safety. Our new fertilizer program provided by Natural Lawns of America prefers biological controls to synthetic pesticides because they are more environmentally friendly. You, your children and pets are very important, and we take great pride in giving you peace of mind that this organic-based program will bring you.

Along with our new program, we will be providing soil tests for a nominal fee of $35.00 to properly evaluate each individual lawn condition. The test will be sent out to a lab to be properly analyzed. The soil test is optional, but is recommended to help our team better understand how we can improve the condition of your lawn.

Suggested Fertilization Schedule:

• Early Spring - Organic-based fertilization consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur and micronutrient supplement. Pre-emergent crabgrass reducer. Selective weed control.
• Late Spring - Organic-based fertilization consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur and micronutrient supplement. Selective weed control.
• Summer - Organic-based fertilization consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur. Selective controls for lawn damaging surface insects.
• Early Fall - Organic-based fertilization consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur. Selective weed and lawn damaging insect control.
• Late Fall - Organic-based fertilization providing the heavy feeding needed for winter hardiness and root system growth.
• Lime - Balanced blend of calcium and magnesium to neutralize soil acidity. (Applied as needed)

Top of page

Lime Application
All soil that produce grass plants need lime to control soil acidity for optimum growth.

Soil acidity is the term used to express the quality of hydrogen (H) and aluminum (AL) in soil. Soil pH, which is the negative logarithm of the soil hydrogen concentration, is expressed on a scale from 1 to 14. Because the pH scale is logarithmic, soil with a pH of 6 is 10 times more acidic than a soil with a pH 5 is 100 times more acidic than a soil with a pH of 7. The lower the pH number the more acidic the soil is, and therefore the greater need for lime. As time goes on soil tends to become more acidic making lawns more desirable to weeds. Lawns in our particular region ideally should have a lime application once a year to keep the acidity of the soil under control.

Top of page

Mulch Beds
Mulching gardens and landscape beds can be beneficial to plants in numerous ways.

Mulch not only helps conserve moisture around plants, but also serves as a barrier to weed growth and can be an effective method to weed control. Mulch is generally beneficial to plant growth as long as it has been composted properly and applied to plants properly. Proper application of mulch includes not applying it in too thick of a layer and avoiding direct contact with the base of the plant stem. Not only is mulch beneficial to plants, but also to the aesthetics of your landscape - it keeps it looking fresh and well maintained.

Top of page

Over Seeding
Your lawn is comprised of millions of individual grass plants.

Like any other living thing, these plants eventually die. It is important to overseed once a year to keep your lawn thick and healthy. A dense lawn will crowd out weeds like dandelions and crabgrass that crop up in bare or thinly covered patches. Overseeding is a great way to introduce hardy, pest resistant and low maintenance grasses such as endophytic ryes and fine fescues into your lawn. A lawn with diverse grass types is better able to deal with and recover from stress such as drought, pest outbreaks, disease and traffic. It is best to overseed from late August to late September, although April is also acceptable.

Top of page

Shrub Pruning and Trimming
Pruning shears in untrained hands can brutalize both the health and beauty of landscape plants.

One wrong snip can turn an expensive landscape into an eyesore that may never heal. Keeping hedges healthy and looking their best consists of much more than taking a gas or electric hedge trimmer and shaping the bushes. To properly trim and prune you need to start with a hand held precision pruner to remove all of the dead branches out of the shrub. Followed by removal of some of the oldest wood to help produce new growth. Leave it up to us to properly prune your landscape plants while preserving their natural beauty.

Top of page

Slit Seeding
Information is coming soon.

Top of page

Thatching
Excessive thatch restricts the movement of air, water, pesticides and fertilizers into the soil, fostering shallow roots that favor bugs and lawn disease. Thatch is an organic material that does not decompose. Once a lawn develops a thatch layer it becomes the perfect living environment for bugs and disease to kill the grass. Thatch consists of a tightly intermingled layer of dead or decaying grass tissues derived from stems, roots and leaves just above the soil. As thatch accumulates, there is a tendency for root and rhizome growth to occur primarily in the thatch layer rather than in the soil. This results in a weakened poorly rooted turf that is prone to injury.

The best time to remove thatch are during periods of active grass growth (early spring or in the fall after Labor Day). These times are recommended because the removal encourages recovery from injury that may occur during dethatching.

Despite popular belief, grass clippings do not contribute to unwanted thatch. Grass clippings are the perfect fertilizer for your lawn. Grass clippings are full of nutrients and organic matter that is able to boost soil fertility up to 30 percent. They also return moisture to your soil and shade it from the drying rays of the sun.

Top of page

Deer Repellent Service
Our monthly deer repellent service is proven to be effective in the Somerset County area.

• Works by producing an odor offensive ONLY to animals
• Prevents damage ­ animals leave the area before feeding
• Effective in all weather
• Long lasting & rain resistant
• Will not harm plants or animals