Dethatching your lawn can be one of the most tedious and laborious tasks you will ever encounter, but if you don’t do it and clean up the piles, you could lose all your green grass from thatch build-up. This article tells you how to clean up after dethatching, so you don’t have to put off mowing your grass for another week or two. After reading this article thoroughly, you will be able to clean up your lawn after dethatching in the right way.
Tools Needed for Cleaning
Several tools are available for cleaning up all the pulled-up thatches from your lawn. But which one you should be using depends on the size of your lawn. If you don’t use a cleanup tool recommended with a specific size of lawn, then most probably you will end in either exhausting cleaning or end up paying more than you should have. Now let’s see what the sizes of lawns available are? And what are the tools to use?
- If you have a small lawn – You should use a leaf rake or leaf blower
- If you have a large lawn of up to one acre – You should be using a Push sweeper
- If you have a lawn over one acre – You should be using pull behind lawn sweeper
How to Clean up after Dethatching?
Cleaning up of the dethatched piles requires you to follow the cleaning process. Cleaning up depends on the size of your lawn and the type of tool you are using. Each type of tool has a specific way to clean thatches from lawns. In this part, you will learn how to clean thatches from lawns based on the sizes of the lawn and the types of tools available for cleaning.
How to Clean Small Lawns?
Cleaning a small lawn requires you to use either a rake or a leaf blower.
Cleaning with a Rake
When it comes to small lawns, a rake can do all you need to clean up after dethatching your lawn. It is easy to use and allows you to build controlled piles of thatches for disposal. The rake also provides the ability to clean other trimmings at the same time. Raking gives you the ability to maneuver freely around the lawn if there are obstacles such as trees or rocks, or ponds in the lawn. With a rake, you can clean thatches from places where you cannot use a pull-behind sweeper.
To clean with a rake, first, you should start combing and dragging all the pulled-up thatches from the ground and amass in one place. Then dig a hole into the ground to dispose of all those thatches in the ground or simply dumping in the dustbin.
Cleaning with a Leaf Blower
A leaf blower is designed to clean messes in a short amount of time. It’s a useful tool for cleaning small size lawns. Leaf blowers are noisy, hefty, and cannot precisely make any stockpiles.
To clean with a leaf blower, first, you need to make sure that the leaf blower is connected to the electricity and start the blower from a corner of the lawn; slowly move the blower to a center point where you want to pile up all the thatches. And after amassing all the thatches, you will need to either dispose in the ground or dump them in your dustbin.
How to Clean Lawns up to One-Acre Size?
Cleaning a lawn up to one-acre size requires you to use a push lawn sweeper. A lawn sweeper is a good and time-saving choice for a small and medium-size lawn thatch cleaning. It is less laborious than rake cleaning. It is a machine that can sweep and clean all the thatches from the ground effortlessly.
To clean with a lawn sweeper, first, you have to push the sweeper in front of you across the lawn swiftly. The moving tires of the sweeper rotate lots of brushes inside of the sweeper. That collect and dispose of all the loose materials on the ground and sweep them in a bag. After collecting all the thatches from the ground, you can easily dispose of those materials in a specific place. A sweeper is not a good tool in lawns with lots of holes and can only pick up small, light yard trimmings.
How to Clean a Large Lawn Bigger than One Acre?
If you have a big lawn that is bigger than one acre, it is quite time-consuming and hard to use a push lawn sweeper. Walking across the lawn using a push lawn sweeper can make you exhausted. That is you it is recommended to use a pull-behind lawn sweeper. Pull behind lawn sweeper is meant to attach to a riding lawn mower to pick up the lawn clippings. With this pull sweeper, you can effectively collect all the thatches on the lawn with its big hopper built in the backside of the sweeper. Besides, the hopper can quickly be removed and emptied before reusing. It is much bigger than a push sweeper, so it can effectively collect lots of thatches and dispose at once. These sweepers are designed to cover a large area. A pull-behind sweeper should be in your collection if you have a large area of lawn ground.
To use a push sweeper, you have to attach the sweeper with a riding lawnmower. But without a vehicle powerful enough to pull the sweeper, it is not usable. After attaching the sweeper with a mower to tow the sweeper, you can start to collect thatches with the sweeper. But before starting the thatch collection, first, you have to adjust the height of the sweeper to collect all the thatches at the ground effectively. If the hopper is full, you can unfold the extra portion of the hopper. After collecting the thatches, dispose of them in a specific area.
Bottom Line
The cleaning process of a dethatched lawn includes collecting all the thatches and disposing of those thatches in a specific area. But the process varies a bit based on the type of tool you are using. With the detailed guide above, next time, you won’t have any problem while dethatching.