How to Reduce Maintenance on Your Lawn

Lawns can be a lot of work, since they can demand regular grass cutting, raking, and cleaning. While a beautifully manicured lawn will add to your home”s curb appeal, it can start to look pretty ragged and messy once the grass grows out.

The good news: It”s not hard to reduce the maintenance on your lawn. With a few simple changes, you can make it much easier to keep your lawn in good shape with far less work.

Let clover grow

Many people see clover as a weed, and they try as hard as they can to get rid of it. Chemicals, herbicides, and other treatments get applied to the lawn to get rid of the clover, but this hardy plant resists all efforts to get rid of it.

Want to cut down on lawn maintenance? Let the clover grow. It stays green all year long, it smells better than grass, and it”s very hardy; which means it won”t die out as quickly as expensive grass. The best part: it doesn”t grow too long, so you rarely need to trim it.

Add walkways and flagstones

If you want to reduce the amount of maintenance your lawn requires, why not reduce the amount of lawn? Adding a walkway through the center of your lawn will clear a patch of ground that will be concrete instead of grass.

Concrete walkways can look very nice, and they can certainly add to the curb appeal of your home. They require almost nothing in the way of maintenance, aside from a regular washing, and they”ll make it much easier for you to keep that lawn looking good.

Use native grass

A lot of people use expensive grass imported from elsewhere in the nation to make their lawn look perfect, but native grasses will be a much cheaper, low-maintenance option. Native grasses like Buffalo grass will require a lot less water, but they still grow well because their roots dig deep into the soil.

The fact that the roots grow so much to find water means that less emphasis is placed on the green shoots growing, so your native grasses will not grow as tall or as quickly. If you reduce the amount of watering you do, you”ll find that you can keep your grass nice and short for much longer.

Find colonizers

Clover is just one example of a type of plant that will spread and colonize your lawn if left alone. Since it”s considered a weed, many people try to keep their high-maintenance lawn looking “perfect” and work hard to get rid of that “weed.” But leaving it alone will give you that low-maintenance lawn you want.

Other plants like moss make good grass alternatives, though moss only grows well in the shade. Go to your local plant store and ask for plants that will spread, even if most people consider them to be weeds. They look a lot like costly grass, but they”ll be much lower-maintenance … not to mention cheaper and hardier.

Use artificial turf

Many people consider the use of artificial turf to be anathema to having a beautiful lawn, but the truth is that quality artificial turf looks and feels almost like the real deal. If you want a low-maintenance lawn, you should definitely consider synthetic grass.

It”s is much easier to take care of, and there”s no need for you even to own a lawn mower. There”s very little that can damage the grass, and it will be much cheaper in the long run. If you want a low-maintenance lawn, synthetic grass is an option to consider.