Options are everything when purchasing a new home to give it your individual style. However, one of the most over-looked items homeowners miss is the attention to what the builder is going to do to the lawn. Whether you listen to this advice now or ignore it, you’re going to pay for a nice lawn later. It’s not going to happen automatically and many new home buyers are frustrated for years after they move in.

Poor Soil Conditions: As a professional lawn care company we know that to grow a beautiful lawn, you need at least 7″-12″ of topsoil that is moist but well-drained, not compacted, and rich in organic matter. However, this isn’t always the case after homes are built as the soil is scraped off, moved around, and construction equipment drives over the property multiple times, compacting it. In some instances lots end up with only a few inches of topsoil with a hard, clay subsoil just underneath it. This isn’t an ideal environment for growing a nice lawn.

Poor Timing for Seeding: You may just be excited to get into that new house, but if you have your seeding done during the summer or way too late in the fall, that new lawn doesn’t stand much of a chance. New lawns require proper watering to get them growing and to mature. The perfect time to seed a lawn would be very late in the summer to fall. If the grass has ample moisture and temperatures over 55 degrees, you’re going to see good seed germination. If it’s too cold, too hot, or too dry, most of that seed will lose its viability and not grow.

Poor Quality Seed: When a builder constructs a house, their main concerns are that there is something green growing on the lawn, and that the soil doesn’t wash away. Unfortunately, this often means using inferior seed mixtures with stuff you don’t want growing in your lawn. The right grass seed mixture will cut down on weeds growing in your lawn and also even germinate better than others.

Poor Follow-Up: It’s just not realistic to think that you can seed a bare-ground lot and have a beautiful lawn in a few months. Plan on it taking a year to two years to get your lawn in half decent shape. You will most likely need to touch-up many areas of the lawn with more seed whether with aeration and over-seeding, slice-seeding, topdressing, or even combinations of them. It takes a couple years for grass to grow roots deep into the soil to find moisture in a drought. You’re going to need to keep watering that new lawn more aggressively than an established lawn. If you neglect that fact, you risk starting all over again. Your new lawn is also going to greatly benefit from enlisting a good lawn care program to address the competition of weeds, crabgrass, and the pressures of insect and disease activity.

If you have a mediocre or terrible looking newer lawn, not all hope is lost. Find a lawn care expert that can give it to you straight. In most instances it doesn’t mean starting over. Sometimes adding a lawn care program, aeration & seeding, can help your lawn to mature into one of those beauties you see growing down the street. It’s just going to take a little more effort in the beginning and some patience. If you would like to talk about the many lawn care options to get your new lawn into shape, don’t hesitate to contact us.