Lawn & Garden Info & Techniques » archive for April, 2007

Pre-Liming Photo

  • April 26th, 2007

Lawn Before Liming

In the previous post, I forgot to include the before photo for visual representation. This is my front lawn before lime (and fertilizer), the second photo is a spot of the lawn that got the fertilizer but no lime.

Section Not Limed


Producing a Lime Green Lawn

  • April 20th, 2007

Depending on where you live, you may consider this effective method of greening up your lawn. It’s simple, as the pay off is good.

Lawns Get Heartburn

If you’ve ever had a case of heartburn you can appreciate the problems of too much acid. Your lawn also needs a good balance when it comes to acidity. Many grasses do not grow well in soil that is very acidic. Because of this, many people will  spread lime on the lawn to counteract the acidity in the soil. If you’re the kind of person that has to know the ‘why’, you might find an article on liming your lawn helpful. Otherwise, I’ll explain some things you might want to consider when applying lime to your yard.
Sweet and Green

In my area, the soil is very acidic so I absolutely must apply lime to reduce the acidity. The old-timers in my area call this “sweetening the soil”. Perhaps, this term comes from the sweet smell of the lime itself. I don’t about those things, but I do know that liming your lawn makes a difference. Application is easy. I’ll briefly describe how I prefer to lime my lawn.

I choose to apply most substances to my lawn with a drop spreader and lime is no different. I prefer a drop spreader because many times I apply ‘weed and feed’ and I don’t like having to watch where the fertilizer is being broadcast - if weed and feed gets on a bush or shrub it thinks it is a weed and kills it. However, drop spreaders have disadvantages too.

Multiple Passes With the Lime

Using a drop spreader to apply lime coupled with the dramatic results creates a need for multiple passes. Every place the lime is applied will green up very well and any spot missed will not. If a drop spreader is used, there may be streaks or stripes in the lawn after the application.

To prevent uneven application I like to be sure and overlap wheel with the previous path’s wheel track. Then after I finish all passes, I apply other coat the same way only the paths cross the previous coat like a grid. Sort of like this symbol looks -> #.

After I’ve made my two coats with multiple passes I give it a light watering so that the lime doesn’t wash away. And that’s all there is to it.

My lawn took about a week to start showing results and about three weeks to get completely evenly green. So if your lawn isn’t greening up like you would like it to, you just might give this a shot.