Three simple Spring lawn care steps.

If your lawn's looking a little winter weary, spring is a fantastic opportunity to bring it back to its lush green best.

Here are three simple steps, to take your lawn from drab to fab:

1. Repair the Bare Patches

Bare spots in lawns can be caused by many different problems. Examples are insect pests, diseases, or wear and tear from energetic kids and pets. Bare patches are very inviting for opportunistic weeds - they'll quickly invade patches if you don’t fix them.

Early spring is an ideal time for lawn repair, as new grass seedlings have time to get established before the hot weather arrives.

First, remove any dead grass and gently cultivate and loosen the soil in the bare patch.

Next scatter some Yates Seed'n'Feed over the patch and gently rake it into the surface. It's very important to water the patch regularly as the new grass establishes...don't let it dry out!

Yates Seed'n'Feed is an easy to use lawn repair product. It contains all the ingredients needed to fix bare patches, plus thicken an existing lawn. The all-in-one nature of the product is a big benefit: Seed'n'Feed includes fast-germinating grass seed and fertiliser, to feed new and existing grass for up to 12 weeks.

Yates Seed'n'Feed also allows you to repair and renovate your lawn all year round, as it contains the same seed varietals as Yates Sow Anytime Lawn Seed, which means it will germinate at temperatures as low as 3°C.

2. Feeding

It takes a lot of energy for lawns to grow the thick, deep green growth you're looking for. When you see grass that's beautiful to walk and play on and looks fantastic, it signals the lawn is working extra-hard. To add to the load, mowing our lawns constantly through the warmer seasons and dumping the clippings depletes nutrients from the lawn soil.

When you take all these stresses into account, it makes sense that lawns need to be fed, to look their best.

Regular feeding with an organic lawn food like Yates Dynamic Lifter Organic Lawn Food helps improve the organic matter content and general health of the soil under your grass. It's also a rich source of grass nutrients, to promote a well-fed, lovely green lawn.

3. Weed Control

Clover is a vigorous lawn weed, with dense foliage that can fill in and quickly smother lawn grass. Lawn grass trying to make its way up through patches of clover really suffers from lack of light, water and nutrients.

Onehunga weed is a real irritant in back lawns over summer. That's the small ferny rosette-shaped weed that produces prickly, spiny flower heads - the ones that stick into bare feet (and paws) to deliver the unpleasant lawn 'ouchy' factor. To avoid summer prickles, Onehunga weed needs to be treated in early spring, before it has a chance to flower. By the time flowers arrive, it has already formed prickles.

Yates Weed'n'Feed Hose-on is an easy to use, hose-on pack for control of clover and Onehunga weed in your lawn, along with many other broadleaf weeds, like dandelion and thistles.

Yates Weed’n’Feed also contains nitrogen and iron, to promote a lush, deep green lawn. Added phosphorus assists strong root development. Potassium is included, to encourage disease resistance. A 2L pack of hose-on Yates Weed’n’Feed will control weeds in 130m² of lawn. A 4L pack will cover a very generous 260m² lawn.

For gardeners with smaller lawn areas, or where hose access is difficult, a good alternative is Yates Weed n Feed Concentrate, which treats 65m² of lawn. Just like hose-on Yates Weed'n'Feed, it selectively controls the most common broadleaf weeds in lawns. It contains nitrogen and iron to promote a lush deep green lawn, plus wetting agent, for improved spray coverage and leaf penetration. Weed'n'Feed Concentrate is easy to apply with a watering can or garden sprayer.