– Garth Ruff OSU Extension Henry County
As temperatures (slowly) begin to warm up this is a great time to prepare equipment for mowing lawns.
There are two simple rules that you can follow to maintain a beautiful lawn. The first is to sharpen your mower blades. Having sharp blades will cut leaves rather than tearing them. This will reduce disease pressure and the lawn will look a lot nicer. If your yard is like mine and you have mole hills you may need to sharpen your blades a couple of time throughout the season. Before I mow each time I like to smooth out any mole hills with a gravel rake or garden hoe.
The second rule is to keep the mower deck two to two and a half inches off the ground. Once the seed heads are removed from the grass in May, raise the deck another half an inch. When we mow too close, the grass is weakened and allows weeds to complete more easily in the lawn. By mowing higher and removing no more than half the grass, root development will not stop, there will be move cover to soak in the rain, the soil will stay cooler, and weeds will be at a disadvantage.
Speaking of weeds this is also a good time to consider crabgrass control. Crabgrass is a summer annual that tends to take advantage of thin spots in your yard where sunlight can reach the soil. There are both pre and post emergence herbicides that are approved for crabgrass control. Any time we can prevent germination with a pre-emerge herbicide it is often more effective than trying to control weeds once they are established. As with any pesticide read the label to see if crabgrass is one of the species that the chemistry will control.