Baton Rouge Lawn Care Services: What You Should Expect from Your Landscaping Company

When you sign up or subscribe to something, you typically understand what you are getting for your money. Years ago, a subscription was synonymous with magazines; today, the term stretches far and wide and encompasses music services like Spotify and XM Radio, as well as television like Hulu and Netflix. These companies do an excellent job of explaining exactly what you’re going to get for your monthly fee. While your listening and viewing habits make up a big part of your day, so does your home’s lawn. The green space around your home is the first thing people notice when viewing your home, and finding the time and equipment to cultivate and maintain a lush, green lawn can be a challenge. This is where a “subscription” with a professional mowing service and landscaping company can be a great benefit. But what services do, and should your lawn and lawn care service provider include?

Proper Mowing Techniques

One of the quickest and most frequent ways to doom your lawn is by cutting the grass too short and mowing too often. Grass takes time to grow into a healthy and robust condition but can be undone after a few bad mowing sessions. Taller grass is healthier grass and helps to suppress the development of weeds naturally by “smothering” out anything else that may try and grow within the turf. A general horticultural rule of thumb is the taller the blades of the grass grow, the deeper the roots are forced to grow to support them. In addition, mowing patterns can often do more damage if not varied every other time. Mowing in the same direction with even a push mower will cause areas to become compacted. This decreases the soil’s ability to breathe and transport nutrients for root structure development. Think about public spaces and the areas where most people walk through grassed areas, is it often more dirt or more grass? Changing where and how a mower travels over a yard is one of the simplest techniques employed by professionals to ensure a healthier lawn.

Lawn Edging and Trimming

Excessive edging, while providing a clean look around concrete, asphalt, and other features can actually be bad for your lawn if improperly done. Weeds thrive in bare soil and sun exposure where your desired turf is removed from. Aggressive edging practices such as using a string trimmer to edge or profile a gap between a bed and turf or along concrete or hardscape transitions provide both of these conditions. Overedging can not only lead to unintended weed problems but massive erosion issues as well in areas where water shed is constant. These areas often cannot be let to “grow back in” but must be repaired with soil and new sod in order to correct the exposed washed-out damage. While the perimeters of your driveway, deck, sidewalk, patio, and landscaping barriers need to be addressed, they need to be treated in a way that supports your entire lawn, thus we use and recommend a fixed blade edger to edge all hard-edge surfaces and a once a month or less frequency to bed edges in turfed spaces.

Weed Management and Lawn Nutrition

No matter how meticulous you are about your lawn, weeds will always try and find a way to make an appearance. Louisiana is a subtropical environment which means the parishes along the coast are excellent at growing agricultural crops and growing every weed in the northern hemisphere! Weed treatment takes time to be effective and is something that requires time and patience while the weed’s “seed to plant” growth cycle is broken. Another feature to expect should be seasonal lawn nourishment by way of a proper fertilizing program that adds nutrition back into the lawn at varying times of the year. Other options to help both protect and ensure long-term health are overseeding with rye grass during the winter months to protect the grass and give a green appearance in an otherwise brown market, core aeration to allow the soil to decompact and promote oxygen and nutrients to reach deeper into the soil layers, and proper watering of turf by way of an irrigation system or sprinklers can ensure that you have a lush, healthy lawn throughout the year. All of which is covered under expert care programs.

Recognition of Lawn Pest and Fungal Issues

It can be daunting for a homeowner to learn and understand all the different ailments that can affect their lawn let alone, which chemical out of the hundreds on the market, is right for their issue and their grass type. Expert lawn maintenance services should include personnel trained in spotting the smallest indication of fungal activity from Brown Patch fungus or Take All fungus, which if left untreated or unchecked, can damage and destroy your grass in large sections at a time. Along with fungal issues, insects can play both a beneficial and disastrous role. Sod Webworms have become a seasonal summer nightmare for most in the Baton Rouge area and can fully destroy a lawn within a couple of weeks. Army worms can do the same in less than a week. Having crews trained to recognize the early signs of an infestation helps to guarantee the yard is treated quickly. Follow-ups can ensure that the hard work and effort put into the lawn is not lost for the smallest of reasons!

Types of Turf

In today’s turf market, there are many different choices of turf to choose from. Expert analysis should be given during mowing service to ensure that the type of grass being serviced is right for the area in which it is located. Certain grasses can thrive in heavier shaded situations while others cannot tolerate but only a few hours. Other grasses are great for high-traffic areas or areas under constant abuse from kids and pets. These items should be monitored and addressed during professional mowing services to ensure the greatest success of a turf type on a property.

If you are looking to bring your yard to the next level, a professional lawn and landscaping company can make this happen. For over a decade, Kyle’s Lawn and Landscape, LLC. has been helping Baton Rouge area home and business owners keep their lawns healthy and green and giving their clients the peace of mind that their investment into their lawn and landscape is being cared for reliably and expertly!