Milwaukee Spring Lawn Care To-Do List

Brennan Landscaping On The Top 4 Must-Do’s For Spring Lawns

With the last patches of snow melting and temperatures on a gradual uptrend, it's time to think about getting your lawn back into shape for the upcoming summer. Brennan Landscaping offers these tips to get you started on a great-looking summer lawn:

1. Clear Out The Dead Leaves and Broken Branches

It's always a good idea to start by cleaning up the lawn. If your yard is like most, there are probably a few areas where fall leaves accumulated late in the season and ended up buried under snow all winter. Along with these now moldering leaves, you probably have broken tree branches all over your yard, too. A good clean-up will not only help your grass "breathe," it will also help avoid damage to your mower.

If you have a big yard and just aren’t up to spending the day raking, Brennan Landscaping can help. Our Milwaukee landscaping crews will rake up all the dead leaves, broken branches and assorted old newspaper inserts, paper cups and random debris that made their way into your yard and haul them away for you. We also provide cleanups and lawn maintenance services for commercial properties throughout Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin, so no job is too big. 

2. Dethatch The Grass

While many homeowners think thatch is a buildup of dried grass clippings, it is in fact a buildup of old grass roots. Grass clippings actually help control the buildup of thatch because when they decompose they help to decompose the old grass roots which form a layer of thatch. 

While some thatch is actually healthy for lawns—helping them retain water and protecting against temperature changes and foot traffic—it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Generally, more than a half inch of thatch is too much. Without clearing the thatch and those matted patches of grass (known as “snow mold”) where blades of grass are stuck together, fertilizer and water won’t be able to reach the roots of new grass trying to come to the surface of your lawn. 

Dethatching is almost a rite of spring, but it is hard on lawns. To minimize trauma to your lawn, you should wait until all the snow has melted and the ground has dried. If you have a large yard, dethatching by hand with a thatching rake could take you most of a weekend and leave you with some pretty intense blisters on your hands. Plan B: Have Brennan Landscaping handle it. Our Milwaukee landscapers use a powered dethatcher to quickly cut through thatch. We make two passes when necessary to make sure we get all the thatch, then rake your lawn clear of the debris. 

3. Aerate Your Lawn

Aeration is usually done with a walk-behind mechanical device or one that is pulled behind a small tractor. The aerator plunges hollow metal tubes about a half—inch thick and 3 to 4 inches long into your soil, leaving ‘plugs’ of earth behind on the surface. Aeration allows water and fertilizer to reach the roots of your grass.

If you have sandy soil, as do many neighborhoods within close proximity of Lake Michigan, you can aerate in either the fall or the spring. We recommend doing it in the spring and following up with fertilizer or a reseeding (if necessary). If you have clay soil, you should aerate your lawn in both the spring and the fall, since it is more prone to compaction. 

If you have a riding mower, you may be able to rent a pull-behind aerator for use on your lawn. Bear in mind these are large, heavy and usually have sharp aeration tubes or spikes, so you will need a pickup truck with plywood in back to protect the bed while transporting it.

For everyone who isn’t able to transport an aerator to their home, Brennan Landscaping offers an affordable lawn aeration service. Our Milwaukee area landscapers will get the job done quickly and thoroughly. We can either pick up the plugs of soil left behind or leave them in your yard to be mowed over when dry—an easy way to add a thin layer of topsoil to your lawn. 

4. Apply Fertilizer

Putting down fertilizer is a great follow-up to dethatching and aerating your yard. To get a really lush, green lawn, your lawn needs the extra boost an application of fertilizer provides. 

While it’s easy enough to buy a spreader and a bag of fertilizer at the garden store and do this yourself, our lawn maintenance crews have extensive experience diagnosing the unique needs of lawns based on soil composition, the type of grass in your lawn and any invasive weeds common to your neighborhood. We would be happy to take a look at your lawn and provide an estimate on spring fertilizing and weed control. 

Lastly, if you don’t already have an irrigation system in place, we can show you how installing a simple irrigation system can make your life much easier and your lawn much healthier.

And if you're thinking about adding plantings or structures to your landscaping, talk to one of our professional landscapers. We have created beautiful residential landscaping in the Milwaukee area and will be happy to help bring your ideas to life, or develop a recommendation for your property. 

Learn more about our Milwaukee area landscaping services for both homeowners and commercial property owners. 

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