Wouldn’t it be nice to have a lawn that grows quickly? Most lawn owners have this as a goal, but few achieve it.
But with some careful planning and by using the best available lawn planting and maintenance techniques, you can make your lawn grows faster than ever before. However, it’s best to exercise some level of patience. Of course, it won’t happen overnight.
Essentially your lawn needs water, fertilizer, and sunlight. But there is more to that. In this article, we take a deeper understanding of how to accelerate lawn growth using various techniques that will yield results quicker than you ever imagined
Contents
- How to Make Grass Grow Fast and Green
- 1. Soil Preparation
- 2. Choosing the Right Seeds
- 3. Seeding Techniques
- 4. Making the Best of Time and Sunlight
- 5. Proper Watering
- 6. Mowing for a Fast Lawn
- 7. Feeding the Lawn
- How to Improve Grass growth
- 1. Fertilization
- 2. Dethatching
- 3. Aeration
- How to Make Grass Grow Fast and Green (FAQs)
- What stimulates grass growth?
- What is the best fertilizer for root growth?
- How can I make my grass greener and thicker?
- Author
How to Make Grass Grow Fast and Green
The rate at which your grass grows is mainly dependent on the care you put into it. Various factors affect how quickly lawns grow, and the more attention you pay to those factors, the faster they will appear and survive.
1. Soil Preparation
There is no doubt that a healthy lawn starts with healthy soil. This begins by preparing your soil for planting. Healthy soil will allow your new grass to grow and thrive. You’ll need to make sure that the area where you’re planning to plant is free of any large stones or roots, etc.
Ideally, the soil should be rich in organic matter, promoting good drainage and healthy root development. Depending on your state of residence and time of year, you may need to amend the soil by turning it over or adding compost to improve its quality. You can do this with a rotary tiller, spade, or shovel.
2. Choosing the Right Seeds
You can choose from a variety of grasses, including cool season, warm season, and invasive grass species.
Cool-season grasses like fescue, ryegrass, and bluegrass grow best in cooler weather. Warm-season grasses like Bermuda and buffalo grass thrive in warmer climates. Some cultivars are bred to be dense, while others are more tolerant of wear.
The growth habits also vary according to species; some grow upright while others fill in low spots or spread outward. So no matter if you live in a temperate or tropical area, there’s a variety of lawn grass that will work well for your lawn application.
3. Seeding Techniques
Basically, there are three techniques you can use: broadcasting, sowing by hand, or using a seed spreader.
Broadcasting involves sprinkling seeds over an entire area by hand. This technique works well if the soil is free from weeds and other undesirable vegetation – since you’re not removing them first, broadcasting may also allow you to spread out your seeds more evenly and with less waste.
Sowing by hand or using a seed spreader is preferred for planting areas with existing turfgrass or other vegetation. Using either method, you want to plant your grass seeds at a depth of 1⁄ 4 inches.
It’s also important to ensure that your soil is evenly moist before and during the germination process. Additionally, use a model designed explicitly for lawns (rather than one for crops).
For faster lawn growth, it’s best to use a lawn seeder rather than hand-sow. Sow two to three pounds of seed per 1,000 square feet of lawn. More seeding is generally better, as it promotes quicker coverage.
When seeding large areas together, it’s best to use seeds from the same source. In this case, monitor how quickly the species growing in one particular area germinate and how well they’re responding to water.
4. Making the Best of Time and Sunlight
The biggest challenge for lawns is not water or fertility; it’s getting adequate sunlight. After all, you can’t grow a healthy grass blade without enough energy from light to power photosynthesis.
While there are no guarantees of how much solar radiation any particular location will receive year-to-year, some general rules apply.
Warm-season grasses (Bermuda, St Augustine turf) need at least seven hours of sunlight each day, and cool-season grasses (Kentucky bluegrass, fescue) need about half that amount, but more is better.
5. Proper Watering
Just as an animal needs water to live, so does a lawn. Even though warm-season grass species have adapted to semi-arid conditions in their native habitat, they still require at least 1 inch of water per week for optimal growth and development.
For cool-season grasses, which are much less tolerant of dry soil conditions than warm-season ones, even a little moisture is necessary to keep them growing vigorously. Other factors such as slope, wind, and shade will influence how often you need to water your lawn and how much water volume.
To accelerate lawn growth, water deeply and as infrequently as possible. If you’re growing more than one variety of grass in your lawn, be careful how much water each receives; too much can kill off some seedlings while others receive less than they need to grow well.
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6. Mowing for a Fast Lawn
The key to a fast lawn is keeping it mowed short at all times. While some warm-season grasses will grow up to 12 inches tall, the ideal height for most lawns ranges between three and four inches.
Mow often enough so that no more than 1/3 of the shoot tips are removed with each pass, as this will help prevent disease problems such as the brown patch.
For best results, raise your mower high enough (three inches or higher), so you can trim off only the leaf material without removing excessive amounts of underground tissue.
Mowing enables your grass to grow thicker because the tip contains a hormone that inhibits horizontal growth.
7. Feeding the Lawn
Maintaining a lawn without fertilizer can be compared to trying to grow tomatoes without adding any nitrogen. Just as tomatoes will eventually exhaust the soil’s natural supply of fertility and begin showing signs of malnutrition, so too will lawns if you don’t feed them properly.
There are several steps involved in how to accelerate lawn growth with fertilizer:
- Your first step is to determine how much nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium your lawn needs to remain healthy. This information is available from your extension service; chances are they will recommend feeding it a commercial fertilizer composition containing all three nutrients in equal amounts (all of these chemicals can also be purchased separately if you desire)
- Before fertilizing any lawn, make sure that the soil contains sufficient quantities of these materials. Soil testing kits, which you may purchase at many garden centers or farm supply stores, help you determine how much of each nutrient is present in the soil. It’s better to err on the safe side; if your soil is already rich in fertility, you don’t want to cause unwanted growth by over-fertilization.
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How to Improve Grass growth
1. Fertilization
While many commercial fertilizers contain various trace minerals, these are usually present in quantities too small to adequately meet the needs for improved turf health. Adhering to the “feed the soil, not just the plant” maxim will give you better results.
Select a fertilizer that contains trace elements, along with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Commercial fertilizers with micronutrients added to their composition usually guarantee complete nutrition for your lawn.
Some successful organic fertilizers include cottonseed meal, cottonseed hulls, and kelp meal.
2. Dethatching
Dethatching is the process of removing thatch, which is a layer of dead and decaying grass material. You can do this with a power dethatcher or by hand with a rake. Dethatching helps loosen the soil underneath, enabling it to better absorb water and nutrients.
If you have a thick thatch layer or don’t get much rainfall in your area, it’s a good idea to dethatch every year. If you have low thatch levels or don’t need to water your lawn often, it’s probably not a good idea to dethatch.
3. Aeration
Aeration is the best way to make your lawn grow faster by improving its root development. All turfgrass roots need air, and by aerating the soil between your grass plants, you supply them with oxygen.
The best technique for aeration is to use a machine designed specifically for this job. Alternatively, you can use a liquid soil aerator to loosen the soil.
By pulling cores of soil from the ground at a depth of three inches, you also remove a minute amount of thatch and loosen the soil without compacting it, which can be harmful to your lawn.
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How to Make Grass Grow Fast and Green (FAQs)
What stimulates grass growth?
You can stimulate grass growth by applying compost/manure, mulching (with or without cultivation), dunging, aeration, and scarification, Varied watering patterns, i.e., light-moderate / moderate to heavy watering, and elimination of water stress.
What is the best fertilizer for root growth?
Phosphorous-rich fertilizers are the most effective for root growth, but nitrogen-rich fertilizers also promote lush green growth.
How can I make my grass greener and thicker?
To make your grass greener, it is important to apply a balanced fertilizer that contains nitrogen and all the macro and micronutrients required for optimum growth.
Understanding how to accelerate lawn growth is a valuable skill for any homeowner.
Taking care of your lawn doesn’t necessarily mean you have to invest lots of time and money, especially if you understand how soils work, fix nutrient imbalances in the soil, dethatch effectively, and aerate properly.
All of these techniques will help keep your soil healthy, and in turn, this will help you grow a beautiful and lush lawn faster.
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