Common Backyard & Lawn Problems and How to Deal with Them

You rake the leaves, water the plants, and apply pesticide. You give your lawn some time to grow and prosper, only to wake up and find it looking half-dead and on the brink of turning into a mini desert. No one said gardening – or horticulture in general – was going to be easy. There are a lot of tiny little details you must take into account that go beyond the basic watering and lawn mowing.

If you’re motivated to improve your gardening skills and turn your lawn into a biophilic paradise that will turn heads, then the very best place to start is with some of the most common lawn problems, such as lawn rust, pests, irrigation problems, or yard flooding.

How to Deal With Lawn Rust 

Why Your Lawn Has Dry Patches and Ways You Can Fix It

You’ve done everything you can for your lawn by regularly watering it and spraying insecticide for good measure. But those yellow and bare patches still dot the surface of your lawn and ruin the otherwise luscious green of your landscape. The brown spots on lawns and general landscape surfaces are caused by a variety of other reasons, such as brown patch fungus, contaminated soil, as well as the sun simply burning up these patches of land.

The easiest way to fix this is to refresh the soil below. If the soil is contaminated, dig deep below it, then replace the uppermost layer of soil with layers that are deeper underground. This gives the ground a fresh layer of healthy soil, burying away the lawn diseases, and keeping it from affecting the plant life on the surface. In the case of lawn fungus – the typically dreaded Rhizoctonia solani – you may need to replace the soil and plant life entirely to keep it from contaminating the surroundings. Find the dry patches on your lawn and get to the root of the problem. 

Waging War on Pests

Ways to Combat the Most Common Lawn Insects and Parasites

Pests are a huge problem for lawns all across the country. Depending on the climate you live in, your landscape will have its own assortment of tiny baddies munching away at the plant life. From chinch bug damage to grub damage, wildlife wants to do everything it can to give your lawn a hard time. Unfortunately, even those homeowners who take their lawn care very seriously may not know what kind of pest infestation they have in their lawn and what to do about it.

To get rid of chinch bugs, you can purchase special insecticide granules to help you fend off the annoying insects. You can buy these online for anywhere from $20 to $40 and they will last you three months. These granules specialize in killing away the nasty bugs without harming the plant life or the health of any other creature. For grubs, you need to be a little more organized with your time window. These are easier to kill between late summer and early fall. In this case, you can fight fire with fire by using beneficial nematodes which are another type of insect that hunt down these grubs hiding under the grass and kill them before they can hatch. But if you don’t want to overcomplicate things, you can always use the standard insecticide chemicals which will rid your lawn of grubs. 

Fixing Improper Irrigation

How to Get Proper Landscape Irrigation

If you’re looking to spend more time in your backyard during the summer then proper lawn drainage is a must — unless you enjoy the idea of setting your foot in a patch of mud every time you want to get to your deck or patio. Improper irrigation can lead to a variety of problems, from turning your backyard into a swamp as a result of standing water after rain to attracting a whole bunch of insects that settle in your landscape as a result of the moisture. Too many homeowners wrongly believe that drowning their plants in water is going to make a more fertile and vibrant landscape, but, as with most things in life, too much of anything is not good.

Luckily, there are backyard drainage solutions to help you fix irrigation problems and get your lawn the perfect balance between dry and wet. A good place to start is to keep track of how many times you water your lawn throughout the week. While there is no set number of times you can water your landscape, the golden rule of thumb is to give your lawn a good watering two to three times a week. On hotter days in the summer, this number may need to be higher.

By contrast, during the wetter months, you may need to water less often. However, if you notice it takes a long time for the water to dry up between each watering, there may be a problem with your soil. Some types of soil can retain moisture and don’t allow it to spread throughout the landscape. This is usually the result of the soil containing too much clay, which keeps the water from flowing. You may need to change up the soil in its deeper layers and replace it with something more grainy, such as sand. This will allow water to get to the deeper areas of your landscape, preventing it from pooling up.

Scalping Your Lawn

A Common Mistakes Homeowners Make When Mowing the Lawn

Scalping is among the most common backyard problems that homeowners face as a result of giving their lawn a buzzcut all year long. It goes without saying that mowing the lawn is an important step in ensuring its health and keeping your lawn looking tidy. However, there is actually a fine line between keeping it tidy and destroying your lawn.

During the spring, when there is not as much sunlight, grass needs as much photosynthesis as it can get. So, cutting the grass short ensures that each blade of grass will get all the sunlight it can. However, in the summer, when there is plenty of sunlight to go around and it gets quite hot, cutting grass very short could lead to drying it up completely. If the ground is exposed to a lot of sunlight, the water you give it will dry up quickly (even if you give it plenty of water), leaving your plants under-watered. Additionally, if your grass is too short in the summer, the sun can easily burn some of the blades on a very hot day as the grass is overloaded with sunlight. So, during the summer, it’s advised that you keep the grass longer than you would in the spring. The taller blades of grass will protect the ground below from getting dried out and burn.