Get Your Lawn Ready for Spring in Dallas

Winter is the best time your get your lawn ready for spring in Dallas. These steps will help ensure you have a beautiful lawn this summer. Control spring weeds, perform mower maintenance, check your irrigation system, prep your turf grass, aerate your lawn, and spread compost to provide supplemental nutrients to your soil.

Control Spring Weeds Now

Winter is the best time to stop spring weeds before they germinate, emerge, and grow into full-grown problem plants. Not only will these weeds make your lawn look ugly, but they will spread seeds that cause more weeds to grow across your lawn in the spring and summer. Pre-emergent will kill many of your spring weed seeds before they germinate. This will give you a great start to spring with much fewer weeds to fight. It may not kill off all your weeds, but it will help tremendously. Some weeds are harder to kill than others. Dallisgrass, Crabgrass, Nutsedge, and King Ranch Blue Stem are some of the most challenging weeds to stop in North Texas lawns. Some weeds can be killed with careful spot spraying, and others need to be dug up and removed, while some weeds like nutsedge should not be pulled up to prevent spreading. Homeowners are often confused between Dallisgrass and Crabgrass. See our other articles on weedexlan.com/lawn-care-tips to learn more about identifying and treating these weed types.

If you are not a DIY type of person, contact an experienced local lawn care company with expertise with North Texas turf grass and weeds. Weedex Lawn care (972) 727-9207 has been getting lawns ready for spring in Dallas and the metroplex for the past 20 years.

Mower Maintenance

Getting your lawn ready for spring in Dallas should include mower maintenance if you mow your lawn. Ideally, your mower needs service each winter. Don’t wait until spring to discover that your mower will not start because the carburetor is gummed up. This can happen in gasoline is left in the mower all winter long. A gummed-up carb will have to be cleaned or replaced. Drain your gas or run the mower dry to empty the carb of old gas. A second option is to use a fuel stabilizer in your equipment. Don’t wait until spring, when everyone else is trying to get their mower into the repair shop. Take your mower to the repair shop when they are less busy in the winter. Ask the mechanic to give your mower a tune-up. This process should include checking the fuel lines, carburetor and spark plug. Other maintenance items include cleaning the air filter spark plug, checking the starter pull-string and mower blade. They should replace or repair any worn parts.

A sharp mower blade will provide a more precise cut on your blades of grass, giving you a healthier, better-looking lawn. Sharpen your mower blade or replace it when you start to see that grass blades have a rough finish after you mow the lawn. Better yet, sharpen your mower blade every winter. If it is nicked or gouged from hitting rocks during the mowing season, replace it. Also, don’t neglect the maintenance of other gas-powered equipment like weed trimmers and blowers. They can suffer the same fate as your mower if gasoline is left in the carburetor and fuel lines all winter.

Irrigation Maintenance

Irrigation maintenance is often overlooked until the lack of water has caused damage to a lawn, especially in the Texas heat. When you get your lawn ready for spring, be sure to test our irrigation system. The sprinkler heads in each zone should be in working order. Broken heads or pipes can starver your lawn of much-needed water in the summer heat while also costing you money in wasted water.

The heads should raise and lower properly, spray water in the proper direction, and reach the right distance. Make sure that sprinkler heads in the yard have some spray overlap so that the entire yard receives water coverage. If you are not sure that proper water is happening, then a few empty tuna fish cans are in the suspect areas and run the sprinklers, zone by zone. A short sprinkler run-time is usually adequate to determine if water landing in the cans and the depth of water captured in each can. The sprinkler heads may need to be cleaned out, adjusted for spray direction or may even require replacement. If you are not comfortable working on your irrigation system, call a reputable local irrigation company like Andy’s Sprinklers, Drainage, and Lighting to conduct an early spring test.

Scalping Your Lawn

It is helpful to give your Bermuda grass a close haircut after the last winter freeze to help get your lawn ready for spring in Dallas. The top growth of Bermuda grass goes dormant and doesn’t turn green again. Cutting off or scalping the dead old-growth promotes new growth, and the grass will green up faster. It is crucial to wait until early March to scalp your Bermuda grass lawn to avoid freeze damage to a more vulnerable lawn. There is no need to scalp your St. Augustine grass.

Aerating Your Lawn in Dallas

You can help get your lawn ready from spring in Dallas by aerating it after it is scalped in the early spring. The aeration process will poke many small holes in your yard and extract the soil cores. This process helps reduce soil compaction, which is common with our clay and sandy soil types in North Texas. These holes will give your root system room to grow and spread out in the aerated soil. The holes will also help the soil absorb water which can quickly run off of a lawn with compacted soil, leaving little water on the yard to be absorbed. Nutrients and fertilizer can also penetrate the soil more readily and feed your growing spring lawn. Watering an aerated lawn frequently will help protect your home’s foundation by helping to keep the soil from drying out. Weedex Lawn Care offers a core aeration service to aerate your grass before you add top dressing. Call us today at (972) 727-9207 to schedule your aeration treatment along with our annual lawn treatment program.

Top Dressing your Lawn

After you aerate your lawn, topdressing your lawn with a thin layer of compost will help get your lawn ready for spring in Dallas. The compost will add much-needed nutrients that will be readily absorbed in the aerated soil. Cow manure or mushroom-based organic compost are best. They will nourish and strengthen your law as it starts the growing season. These types of composts can be purchased from your local home improvement, gardening or hardware store in 40 pound bags. With a garden rake, wheelbarrow, shovel and some physical labor, you can spread a thin layer of compost across your lawn. If you or not a DIY person or it sounds like too much work, call a local company or Earth Kind that provides these services in North Texas.

Following the steps outlined above should get your lawn ready for spring in Dallas. Your lawn will become greener, become more healthy, and it could quickly become the envy of your neighbors. For more information about the processes in this article, call Weedex Lawn Care (972) 727-9207 or visit www.weedexlawn.com We like to say, “Greener lawn. Happier you.”