Many homeowners have some idea of how to care for a new home once they move in, but what about a new lawn? Part of the joy of buying a new home is the curb appeal it offers with lush green grass and blossoming new plants and flowers. Don’t let that curb appeal fall apart only months after you move in! It’s important to read up on how to care for your new lawn.
In Columbia County, GA, new yards are required to be stabilized, meaning 90% of your yard must have
something growing on it. New lawns in Georgia are often created out of sod, mulch, pine needles, and a variety of plants and bushes, etc. Depending on how long your new home has been sitting, the yard may already have a great head start, requiring only caring maintenance on your part.
Most yards will have been installed for at least two weeks before you take ownership of a new home, but if you do indeed have a yard in its infancy, more precise care is required. That care can also vary depending on what part of the country you live in. The best way to know how long your yard has been in place is to ask your homebuilder.
Watering Your Lawn
In the first month, your new lawn needs to be watered twice daily for 15 minutes, once in the morning and once in the later evening around sunset. After two weeks, the roots will have taken hold and the visible green blades of the grass will begin to grow. At this point, watering can be reduced to twice per week, or as necessary.
Your new lawn needs more water in the first six months to allow for a deep root system to take hold. After the first year, it should need less water.
First Choice Home Builders Superintendent, Robbie Weathersbee, oversees all new home site work, including grading, landscaping and new lawn maintenance prior to a home closing. At First Choice, all new homes come with sprinklers/ an irrigation system already installed into the yard. If you don’t have a sprinkler system, however, you can purchase an inexpensive sprinkler from any hardware store and attach it to your garden hose.
“For all new homes, we give the homeowners a copy Clemson’s breakdown of Bermuda grass care, which spells out exactly what to do each month to maintain your yard,” says Robbie. This guide suggests things such as spraying your yard 7 times per year to achieve near perfect grass, as well as fertilizing every 5 or 6 weeks.
(NOTE: Fertilizer should not be applied within the first 6 weeks of a new yard’s installation.) To download your own copy of this yard maintenance guide,
click here.
95% of First Choice Home Builders’ new yards feature Bermuda grass sod. “Bermuda grass likes about an inch and a half of water per week, but the only way to really know how much you’re watering is to put a couple rain gauges in the yard,” said Robbie. “Every irrigation zone and every house is different, depending on where it’s located.”
Troubleshooting
A general rule of thumb is: Any time your grass looks dry- water it. Sometimes, however, even the simple act of watering your lawn can lead to issues. Robbie discusses some of the most common mistakes new homeowners make when caring for their new lawn.
Watering in the middle of the day. You want to water your lawn in the morning, because if watered during the middle of the day, the water will evaporate in the hot sun before it ever reaches the roots of the plants. This can cause the grass to dry out.
Overwatering. It’s important to understand that you can kill your grass just as easily by overwatering it as under watering. Overwatering can lead to the roots of your grass rotting. When the soil is too wet, the grass roots cannot get enough oxygen, resulting in the grass blades turning a yellow color and the roots dying or turning black. “The timing is different for every yard, but zones for flowers typically go off for 5-19 minutes, and the grass 15-20 minutes.”
Be sure your irrigation is on and running. “One of the most common mistakes new homeowners make is incorrectly setting the run times on the irrigation clock,” said Robbie. “Sometimes people will set all 3 times at the same time, watering their grass 3 times back-to-back in the same day. If your yard looks extremely wet, that might be the problem.” Often, homeowners are either asleep or at work when their irrigation system is active, so they may not be there to witness if they’ve accidently set the timer incorrectly.
Soggy grass around swales. The swale in your yard is the shallow ditch with gently sloping sides. “At First Choice Home Builders, we install French drains in all of our swales to redirect runoff and ground water,” Robbie said. “Without a French drain, the grassy area where all of the water from your yard drains will always be wet and soggy.”
Top Dressing
For those homeowners who want a yard that is the envy of the neighborhood, Top Dressing may be for you. It’s the process of applying compost, soil, or sand over the surface of your lawn. If you’ve ever wondered why people put sand in their yard or on the golf course, this is why. Sand, a method of top dressing common here in the home of the annual Masters Tournament, is applied to your yard in low spots and high spots, but only if your yard is not completely smooth. Bermuda grass in particular likes growing through the sand. But some may argue that compost is the best method of top dressing lawns.
Before you decide to dive into top dressing your yard, it might be best to wait a summer or two until you get the hang of regular lawn maintenance. And if you don't want to take any chances, we recommend hiring a professional lawn care service to maintain that soft-as-carpet, barefoot walking, beautiful green lawn, so you can enjoy it all year long.
First Choice Home Builders is a local homebuilder in the Columbia County and Greater Augusta, GA area specializing in custom, semi-custom, and build-on-your-lot homes. Currently the company is building homes in the Riverwood Plantation, Whispering Pines, and Rhodes Farm Master Planned Communities. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Houzz to see current projects.
