You’ve dethatched your lawn, now what? If you don’t have experience of dethatching your lawn before, you might be wondering what steps come next in the process of transforming your lawn into a healthy green oasis. In this article, you will learn what’s next after dethatching a lawn for the ultimate lawn care.
What’s next after Dethatching a Lawn?
The main purpose of dethatching is to make the lawn ground available and visible to the sunlight and water contact, which supports the healthy growth of the lawn grass. Dethatching is a part of the overall process of lawn care, which includes pulling up and removing thatches from the lawn ground. But thatching is not the whole thing. Multiple steps are involved in the process for the ultimate maintenance of your lawn. When dethatching removes the excess layer of thatch and debris from the ground, several steps follow the process of lawn care after dethatching, and those steps of ultimate lawn care include the following.
Steps After Dethatching
After dethatching, you end up with lots of thatch and debris on the lawn ground that says that the first step after dethatching is to remove the pulled-up thatch from the lawn. Besides, there are other steps followed by picking up the thatch, from down below, you will learn
Picking up the Thatch
Once you finish dethatching your lawn ground, you will be left with lots of debris and thatches pulled up and scattered around your lawn. And the next step to getting your lawn back in shape will be cleaning the piles of thatch scattered across your lawn ground. If you don’t pick up and clean those piles of thatches, in a few days, those thatches will settle back in the ground again. Picking up and cleaning those thatches is important because thatch piles are a haven for bacteria generation and also a good place for insects nesting. Without removal of those thatches piles, your lawn can not regenerate the healthy growth of grasses. So, we recommend picking up the thatches from the ground as soon as possible. Picking up those piles of thatches can be easy if your ground is small. You can pick it up with your bare hand and dump it in the dustbin. But in case you have a big lawn, and there’s a lot of thatches pulled up on the ground, it is hardly possible to clean it with your bare hand. In cases like that, you can follow the following pick up and cleaning guide
Way of Picking Up the Thatch
- Small Lawn
If you have a small size lawn, you can use a leaf rake and pile up all the scattered thatches and debris. Another machine that you can use is a leaf blower. A leaf blower works perfectly to pick up thatches if you have one. After collecting thatches and debris with one of these tools, you need to gather all thatches and debris in one place and dump it in a dustbin. You can also dig a hole in one corner of the lawn and bury those thatches. It will increase the nutrients and fertility of your lawn.
- Big Lawn
In case you have a big lawn that covers over acres of land or at least big enough for hand picking of thatches. You can use a lawnmower machine to collect all the thatches. A lawnmower is designed to collect thatch and debris from your lawn. It has a thatch collecting pocket on the backside of the mower. In case the mower cannot hold more thatch in its pocket, it will not collect anymore. So you have to empty the mower pocket before starting collecting again.
Seeding after Dethatching
Dethatching your lawn can also pull up green grasses from the ground. Power rake dethatchers have a spinning blade beneath the rake that can pull up both green kinds of grass and thatches. And make holes in the lawn while dethatching. So after dethatching and picking up thatches and debris from the lawn, you may find lots of empty places without grasses. And it is a good idea to seed all those empty places. Those holes made by dethatchers are a good place for seeding directly. But make sure to use the same grass seed in your lawn. Some grasses grow in the warm season, and some in the cold. Don’t use warm-season grasses seed if you have cold season grasses all over the ground. Seeding after dethatching and cleaning makes it possible for the seeds to directly reach the ground. And as the ground is clear of thatch layer after detaching, that seed can get enough water from the ground. Besides, sunlight and proper season help the seeds to grow grasses faster and cover those empty places.
Watering after Dethatching
Dethatching is a hectic process for your lawn. So after dethatching, it is important for the grassroots to recover and repair. And to help the grassroots recover and repair and grow deep into the lawn soil, you can use deep watering methods. Rather than sallow watering the ground, you can use a deep drench to soak the soil. This method helps the ground to collect water at the lower level of the soil. Watering the soil at the deepest level helps grasses to reach the deepest part of the ground instead of growing toward the moist surface.
Fertilizing after Dethatching
Yes, it is a good idea to fertilize after dethatching. Grasses don’t get enough nutrients from the ground because the soil loses nutrients due to a lack of sunlight and water. And after cleaning thatches from the ground, it is a good idea to fertilize the soil and make the soil full of nutrients required for the healthy growth of grasses. You can use a liquid quick release or a granule slow-release fertilizer. For the winter season, use a fertilizer that is rich in phosphorous. And for the summer and spring seasons, use a fertilizer that is rich in nitrogen.
Bottom Line
People often have no idea about steps after dethatching. It is a shared idea by most people that the work is finished after dethatching a lawn. But for the healthy growth of lawn grasses, those steps mentioned above are important.