A lush, healthy lawn makes a positive first impression on visitors to your home or business, but a lawn also serves several other purposes such as controlling soil erosion, filtering pollution from groundwater and keeping summer ground temperatures more moderate. If your yard has become overtaken by unsightly weeds or sparse patches of grass, it may be time to renovate the lawn. While it is possible to do some or all of the work yourself, hiring a professional landscaper can help save time and money while yielding better results.

The basic goal of lawn renovation is to replace the existing weeds and grasses with more aesthetically pleasing and hardy varieties that are more resistant to drought, disease, insects and other problems. The renovation process can involve dethatching, aerating, overseeding and topdressing, fertilizing and then mowing and irrigating. If the soil is in need of improvement, a soil test is often recommended as the first step of lawn renovation.

As lawn grasses begin their growth in spring and summer, nutrient and water demands increase. Unless you have been providing consistent applications of compost and other soil-improving amendments, your lawn may need some additional help to be its best.

In most cases, renovating a lawn involves spreading fresh grass seed over the surface of the lawn. This can be done by hand or with a dethatching rake. Grass seed that is spread with an organic fertiliser that is formulated for new grasses (usually fescue, Kentucky bluegrass or tall fescue) will have the best chance of success.

The aerating and overseeding part of a lawn renovation usually takes place in the fall, when cool-season grasses are starting to grow again. Aeration involves using a professional core aerator to pull small plugs of soil out of the lawn and leave them on the surface to break down and filter back into the earth. Overseeding at this time helps the fresh grass seeds fall into the holes created by the aerator and generate good seed-to-soil contact.

This step is optional, but in some cases it is necessary for the success of a lawn. It is important to remove all weeds and debris from the surface of the lawn, such as old straw, leaves, woody material and twigs. It is also a good idea to use an organic based soil as opposed to sand for the top dressing. Sand does not retain moisture very well and can make it difficult for the new seed to germinate.

After the topdressing and seeding are complete, it is important to keep the lawn mowed at a low setting and irrigated to promote growth and development of the new grass. This will take a little patience but it will result in a beautiful, green lawn that you can be proud of! Depending on the size of the lawn and the extent of the work, lawn renovation can be expensive. However, when the end result is a pristine, attractive lawn that adds to the beauty of your property, it is well worth the investment.