How to Get your Grass Green

Since the 18th century when the elite used lawns as a status symbol to display their wealth, a patch of shortly cut, well-kept grass has been a staple in British landscaping. One of the reasons that a lawn was considered so luxurious is because of the labour required to keep it neat and give it a healthy green colour. With modern advances in technology the manual labour required to keep a lawn has reduced drastically, though attentive care is still required if you want to keep your grass thriving. In this article we will discuss the measures you can take to improve and maintain your lawns aesthetic. More specifically, how to make your grass a beautiful green colour and how to thicken the lawn.

What makes grass green

The thing that makes grass green is a pigment called chlorophyll.^[1] Chlorophyll is responsible for the photosynthesis process, where plants covert sunlight into food. The more of this green pigment that is in your grass, the greener it will be. So in order to improve the colour of your lawn we need to improve the production of chlorophyll by caring for the plant and giving it the right nutrition. Below we discuss specific methods you can use to do this.

Practices for green grass

Mowing

Regularly mowing your grass to a constant height is one of the simplest and yet most effective ways of keeping it healthy. Regular mowing promotes growth, allows sunlight to all the blades and keeps weeds and pests at bay.

Grass should be mowed at least once a week during spring and summer when it is growing fastest. Whereas in winter it’s fine to leave a few weeks between mowing as the grass will grow at a much slower rate.

The reason that it’s important to mow often is so that each cut takes only a small portion of the grass off. Cutting too much of the blade at once puts a lot of stress on the plant, and you should never cut more than a third of the blade in one go. Conversely it’s almost impossible to mow too often, with some enthusiasts mowing up to twice a day in spring.

The other important consideration when mowing is the height you mow at. As a general rule, you should not mow below 1 inch during spring and summer, with this number increasing to 1.5 inches in winter. Cutting the grass below this point puts a lot of stress on it and will make it more susceptible to weeds.

In fact many studies have shown that longer grass develops a much larger root system. This gives a strong flow of nutrients to the leaves, which in turn keeps them luscious and green. For this reason many people choose to keep their lawn longer, up to around three inches generally being considered as ideal.

Watering

Water is a key ingredient for healthy grass as it required for many vital processes. Most importantly the hydrogen from water is needed for the plant to photosynthesise.^[2] Water is also needed to transport nutrients around the plant and through the roots. If these processes are reduced or prevented completely the grass will run out of nutrients, causing it to brown and die.

Grass should be watered around once a week. Slightly less in damp conditions and up to twice a week during a drought. The key is to ensure that you really soak the lawn when you water it. This way the water penetrates deeper into the soil and provides the root system with a good supply of moisture. This is much better than frequent but shallow waterings which fail to reach deep into the soil. Finally, it is best to water in either the morning or the evening, when the water will not be evaporated by the sun. For more details on watering take a look at our Watering Guide

Weed Control

For many people who want a neat, pristine lawn weeds are very undesirable, although for longer, more natural lawns they won’t present much of a problem. However when it comes to short cut lawns, the weeds can take nutrients, water and sunlight away from the grass, and can multiply to take more and more space of your lawn. So unless your looking to create a more natural, wildflower lawn your going to want to remove any weeds that appear.

We do not recommend using chemical weed killers for this as although they will eliminate the weeds, they are carcinogenic and can be harmful to people, as well as the environment.^[3] On top of this it’s very simple to remove weeds with natural methods, and for these reasons we do not recommend using weed killers.

Ideally, you want to prevent weeds appearing in the first place. One simple way of doing this is mowing your lawn regularly, and not mowing it too short. Regular mowing will kill any weeds that try to grow as they can’t handle the repeated cutting like grass can. Furthermore mowing on a higher setting will mean that weeds are shaded by the longer grass, and so are unable to get sunlight and will die. Another preventative measure is mulching, which comes with a host of other benefits for your lawn. Mulching will prevent sunlight from reaching the weeds, which will stop any attempted growth. We discuss mulching in more depth later in this article.

Thatch

Thatch is a layer of dead organic material that forms between grass and the soil beneath. Whilst some thatch is beneficial to your lawn, too much can disrupt the flow of air and water to the roots which is a problem. More exactly, around ½ Inch of thatch is a healthy level, and anything over ¾ Inch will be detrimental to the lawn.

If a larger layer of thatch does form there’s no need to worry as it’s straightforward to remove. For small lawns you’ll just need to go over it with a dethatching rake, and for larger lawns you can use a machine dethatcher. Once removed you should see your lawn revitalised and back to a deep green colour.

Mulching

Mulch refers to organic matter, such as leaves or grass clippings, that has been shredded into small pieces. Mulching is the process of spreading this organic matter over your lawn or soil. Mulching brings many benefits to your lawn, for example as we have already mentioned it is great at preventing weeds. It also has strong nutritional properties that make it a perfect natural fertiliser. It is these fertilising properties in particular that will improve the health of your lawn and give you a glowing green grass.

Aerate Lawn

Over time, the soil beneath lawns becomes compacted due to normal usage by people and machines like lawn mowers. This compaction of the soil makes it more difficult for air, water and nutrients to flow to the turf, similar to the effects of excessive thatch. Therefore it’s advisable to occasionally aerate your lawn so that the nutrients can flow uninterrupted. The frequency with which you should aerate your lawn will depend on it’s usage, with lawns that get a lot of usage needing to be aerated once a year, and lawns with less traffic only needing one every other year.

It’s very simple to aerate your lawn, with most people opting to use a simple tool like a spike aerator to poke holes throughout the lawn. For more precise results some people opt to use a plug aerator or hire professionals to do it for them.

Fertiliser and Lawn Feed

As we have discussed repeatedly now, one of the key factors in determining the health and colour of your grass will be the nutrient that it is receiving. It is often the case that even with the best care, the soil simply does not have a sufficient supply of the necessary nutrients. To best understand if your lawn is lacking in any particular nutrient, you can buy a soil testing kit to analyse your soil.

Once you test your soil, you will find out if it is lacking in any of the three key nutrient; nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. You can then choose a suitable fertiliser to add to your lawn and fix any deficiencies. For dark green grass the most important macro nutrient is Nitrogen as nitrogen levels determine chlorophyl production, the molecule that gives grass its green colour.

As well as any specific fertiliser you use to target particular deficiencies, it’s always recommendable to apply lawn feed a couple of times a year. These are grass specific fertilisers which generally contain a wide variety of macro and micro nutrients that grass needs to flourish. One feed in April and another in September is perfect for most lawns.

Ferrous Sulphate

Apart from nitrogen, the other key element which is needed to really bring out a smooth, green colour in your grass is Iron. This can be supplied to your grass in the form of ferrous sulphate which can be applied as a special fertiliser.

Overseeding

If there are some patches of your lawn that are looking particularly thin, or if indeed the entire lawn is looking a lot sparser than it used to, overseeding could be a great option for you. By adding new seed to patchy parts of your lawn you will be able to rejuvenate your garden with fresh grass which will combine seamlessly with the old.

Dogs

If you have a dog and yellow patches are appearing on your lawn, it could very well be mans best friend that is causing the discoloration. The problem occurs because dog urine contains a very high concentration of nitrogen. Although this chemical is beneficial in low doses, high concentrations will burn the grass and turn it yellow. A few of the ways to reduce this problem include training your dog to urinate off the lawn on gravel or something similar, planting a patch of clovers for your dog to urinate on as these are resilient to concentrated nitrogen, or increasing your dogs water intake which will decrease the concentration of nitrogen.

Change Grass Type

If you have tried all of these methods and are still failing to achieve a luscious green lawn, it would seem that the species of grass you are using is badly suited to the local environment. If this is a case there is very little you will be able to do to fix it in the long run. Given this circumstance your best option would be to change the type of grass, either by reseeding or returfing your lawn. A failsafe way of choosing the new species is to find out what kind of grass your neighbours as and use that. If it’s the lawn next door is a verdant green, you’ll be able to achieve similar results with the same kind of grass.

How to keep grass green

Once you’ve turned your lawn into a verdant green, you will have to carry on maintaining it if you want to keep it that way. This means continuing to follow the methods discussed above to keep your grass healthy. For most gardens the very basics will be enough to keep it thriving. Simply mowing consistently and keeping the soil moist, especially during droughts, will go a long way. On top of this you could dethatch, aerate and mulch your lawn every couple of years with a little bit of weeding every now and then. And finally for an extra boost you can seasonally fertilise and feed your lawn. The results you achieve will ultimately come down to the amount of time and effort you put in. For the average person, the procedures discussed above are more than sufficient to keep a glowing lawn. Whereas fanatics may want to spend more time working on their lawn and that too is ok. Armed with common sense and the information in this article you’re more than equipped to keep your lawn fresh year-round.