Importance Of Liming Your Lawn

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You know the basics of lawn maintenance, such as mowing and fertilizing. However, perhaps your lawn isn't as lush and green as you'd like. You could water it more, but overwatering leads to a whole host of problems as well. Rather, it could be that your lawn needs liming. Liming could be your key to a lush lawn free of weeds and other invasive plants.

About Liming a Lawn

A major factor in a lawn's health is the soil's pH balance. As the Landscape Network points out, turfgrass – or grass appropriate for lawns – requires a pH between 6.5 to 7 to fully soak up the nutrients in the soil. Sometimes soil gets too acidic through both natural processes such as rainfall and through human activities. That's when contractors need to lime your lawn to raise its acidity. Turfgrass has trouble flourishing in acidic soil because this leads to deficiencies in calcium, phosphorous, and magnesium, which the plant needs. Highly acidic soil can have too much manganese and aluminum, both of which are toxic to the plant.

Signs your Lawn Needs Liming

Since you're talking about pH balancing, naturally one of the ways to discover if your lawn needs liming is with a pH test. You can take clues from your lawn itself to decide if this is necessary. Weeds and moss love lower soil pH, so the abundance of these in your lawn can indicate acidic soil. Likewise, if you're fertilizing your lawn and see little benefit, the acidity in the soil can be preventing the plants from soaking up the above-named nutrients. Additionally, if you have sandy soil, the calcium can leach out more easily, which leads to higher acidity.

Liming Material

There are several lime materials on the market. Landscapers commonly use agricultural ground limestone. Manufacturers make this by grinding rock with high concentrations of calcium into a fine consistency. Another type of liming product is dolomitic lime, which is made by grinding rock with calcium and magnesium carbonate. This is for lawns that also show a magnesium deficiency. It's also possible to use pelletized limestone, which is a combination of ground agricultural limestone with both dolomitic and calcitic powder. These are aggregated into larger particles to facilitate the liming process.

Liming your Lawn

Deciding which product at what amount needed to lime your lawn depends on the results of lawn testing. The acidity and lack of certain nutrients determines which product you need. Finely ground limestone requires using rotary spreaders, while pelletized limestone can be used in both rotary and drop spreaders. If you're planning a new lawn, have the soil tested before planting. Otherwise, test and lime as appropriate about once a year.

Rejuvenate your lawn by treating acidic soil with lime. Contact a company like Heritage Lawn & Landscape LLC to learn more.

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9 March 2017

Talking About Landscaping Techniques and Tools

Hello, I’m Donna. Welcome. I am excited to share my passion for landscaping with you all. I regularly change the layout of my garden, depending on the plants I want to grow each year. I keep my garden beds full of flowers and edible plants to have a variety of vegetation to enjoy. I would like to use this site to cover all of those varieties and talk about the growing techniques and supplies that work best for each option. I invite you to visit daily to learn the information you need to help your garden grow. Thanks for visiting my site.