How to Sell a House With a Bad Yard?

Throwing fertilizer down without consideration of time will be a waste of resources. Hiring a professional will cost you roughly $ 50-80 each visit, while a bag of fertilizer will cost you less than $20.

You can also decide to do it yourself, especially if you have a tight budget and time to spare. If you are doing it yourself, consider the following factors:

Find the Best Day

If you spread fertilizer on your lawn just before a rainy day, you will have wasted the fertilizer because all the nutrients will be washed away. Try and understand the weather forecast so that you fertilize your lawn when no rain is expected over a couple of days.

Understand the Time of Year and the Type of Grass

If your lawn has cool-season grass, it is advisable to fertilize it at least once in the early fall or late summer because such varieties are planted in the winter.

Warm-season grasses should be fertilized at least once in the summer since they are less active in the winter. Such grasses include centipede, buffalo grass, zoysia, Bermuda grass, and St. Augustine.

The Frequency

You can fertilize your grass annually if your lawn is lush. Most lawns require fertilization at least twice a year. But if your lawn is in a dire state, you can fertilize it more frequently.

Fertilize your lawn as early as mid-April if you intend to list your home in the spring. If the soil is warm enough, you will start seeing results in a couple of weeks. Fertilizing the lawn is a good method of improving the quality of your grass. However, it is not just a simple task, and it requires you to keep the following in mind:

• Use enough fertilizer – Using more than the recommended amount of fertilizer will not help the grass grow faster. Excessive use may burn and destroy your lawn. You should use the recommended amount and nothing more.
• When applying fertilizer, you should start with the edges and work your way inside. You should overlap the strips to ensure that the lawn is covered entirely. The fertilizer needs to be spread up and down the entire yard.
• Use a spreader – It is advisable to use a spreader instead of your hands when applying fertilizer. This is because a spreader will ensure that the fertilizer is evenly spread over the lawn.

Do Not Bag the Grass Clippings

Instead of bagging your grass clippings while mowing, you can leave them where they are on the lawn. If you do this, you make your work easier.

The grass clippings are usually small and contain water. This means that they break down faster and fertilize your lawn. All you will have to do is clean the clippings from any hard surfaces around the yard.

However, you will have to bag and dispose of the clippings if your lawn is diseased to avoid the problem from spreading all over the lawn.

Make Use of a Repair Mix for Patchy Grass

A lawn repair mix can be applied to remedy small patches of grass and can help with your curb appeal. Their components include compost, grass seedlings, and fertilizer.

To maximize the results:

1. Get rid of the dead grass and till the soil (approximately three inches below the ground) to allow the seeds to grow.
2. Utilize a lawn spreader to spread the mix on the patch. You can use your hand (with gloves on) to scatter the mix if the patch is not big. Ensure the mix is not over half an inch to avoid overgrowth.
3. Use low pressure to water the patch consistently until the seeds germinate. Do not overwater the spot to avoid scattering the seeds

Use Turfgrass to Fix Bigger Areas

If the gaping bare spots in your lawn are huge, you might consider laying a turfgrass. It will be an even better solution if your time is limited. You may decide to plant seeds on the bare spots, but this process takes time and energy, both of which you don’t have because you want the house sold.

However, the time and energy saved by purchasing a sod come at a cost. It will also be costly to install the turf, but it only takes two to three weeks for the sod to root.

It is a process worth hiring a professional because if it is improperly installed, the sod will only take a short time to turn brown and die.

Find the Cause of the Grub Problem and Deal With It

The dead patches scattered all over your lawn may be caused by grubs (chafers and beetles). They cause a section of the lawn to turn brown and die by eating the roots of the grass.

Grubs may not be your only problem. Birds and animals dig up the lawn to access the grubs causing more damage. If you uproot the grass and discover more than 10 grubs per foot, it is safe to conclude that you have an infestation. You can use a killer or prevention spray on your lawn to get the grub infestation under control.

After spraying, you must water the lawn to ensure the product penetrates the soil. Insecticides are very powerful and hazardous to humans and pets. You must put on protective gear when handling the product and ensure that children and pets do not get close to the treated areas until the treatment process is complete. It takes approximately 10 days for the grubs to die.

Take Care of the Weeds

All weeds are inappropriate, but they cannot be dealt with similarly. Here is how to deal with the three major types of weeds.

• Crabgrass – It is mainly found in lawns that are trimmed under 2 inches and are frequently watered more than they deserve. Weed spray can be used to kill existing crabgrass. However, if you want to stop them from growing completely, you should uproot them from the roots, bag them and ensure the grass is higher to avoid their seeds from germinating.
• Dandelion – There is a specific spray made for this weed. After spraying the weed, you wait for it to die and then uproot it from the roots.
• White clover – Keeping your lawn and soil healthy will stop the spread of white clover. You can use a white clover herbicide to eliminate white clover in your yard.