Spring Lawn Care Tips: How to Wake Up Your Aussie Lawn

After a long, cold winter, spring is when your lawn finally comes back to life. The soil warms up, the grass starts growing again, and everything you do now sets the tone for the rest of the year. Good spring lawn care is the difference between a patchy, weedy lawn and a thick, green one you are proud of. The best part is that it does not take much. A handful of simple spring lawn care jobs, done at the right time, will have your lawn thriving right through summer. Here is exactly what to do.

Of all the seasons, spring is when your lawn responds fastest, which is why good spring lawn care pays off so quickly. Warm season grasses like couch, kikuyu and buffalo are coming out of their winter slowdown and are hungry for food, water and light. Cool season lawns are growing strongly too. That surge of growth is exactly why spring lawn care matters so much, because whatever you feed and fix now, the lawn will use straight away.

Spring is also your one clear window to get ahead of weeds and problems before the heat of summer arrives. Nail your spring lawn care in the first few weeks of the season and you spend the rest of the year maintaining a healthy lawn rather than rescuing a struggling one. That head start is what makes spring lawn care so worthwhile.

The first job in any spring lawn care routine is a tidy up. Over winter, lawns collect a layer of dead grass, leaves and thatch that blocks light, air and water from reaching the soil, so this is where good spring lawn care starts.

• Rake it out. Give the lawn a firm rake to pull up loose thatch and debris. On thick couch or kikuyu, a light dethatch or scarify wakes the lawn up and encourages fresh growth.

• Mow low, once. Drop your mower a notch for the first mow to clear off tired winter growth, then lift it back up for normal mowing. Never scalp the lawn in one go.

• Edge and clear. Trim your edges and clear any garden litter so the lawn has room to spread.

This clean up is the unglamorous part of spring lawn care, but it makes everything you do afterwards work better.

TIP: Only dethatch or scarify once the lawn is actively growing and the risk of frost has passed. Doing it too early, while the lawn is still dormant, slows recovery.

Once the lawn is clean, feeding is the heart of good spring lawn care. A hungry lawn coming out of winter will green up fast with the right nutrients, and feeding is where spring lawn care really shows.

A balanced liquid fertiliser like Pure Balance gives the lawn a steady feed of nitrogen and other nutrients to drive healthy top growth and colour. Pair it with a seaweed tonic like Pure Seaweed+ to build strong roots and help the lawn handle the stress of new growth and warmer days.

Feed little and often through spring rather than one heavy hit. Regular light feeding is gentler on the lawn and keeps growth even, which is the goal of any spring lawn care plan. Steady feeding like this is spring lawn care at its simplest.

Weeds love spring just as much as your lawn does, so the smart move in spring lawn care is to stop them before they take hold. Weed control is one of the highest value spring lawn care jobs you can do.

For summer weeds like summer grass and crowsfoot, a pre emergent such as Spartan or Barricade laid down early in spring stops the seeds germinating in the first place. One well-timed application lasts the season, so there is no need to reapply.

For broadleaf weeds you can already see, like bindii and clover, a selective weed killer such as Bow & Arrow targets the weeds without harming your lawn. Handling both types early is the part of spring lawn care that saves you the most work later, and it is where good spring lawn care really pays off.

As the weather warms, your lawn needs more water, and smart watering is a big part of good spring lawn care. Water deeply and less often to train the roots to grow down, rather than a light sprinkle every day. Deep watering is one of those spring lawn care habits that pays off all summer.

If your soil dried out and went water repellent, water can bead up and run off instead of soaking in. A wetting agent like Pure Wetter breaks that surface tension so water, and any feed or pre emergent you apply, soaks in evenly. Even moisture is what turns all your other spring lawn care efforts into real results, and it is the finishing touch on your spring lawn care routine.

Spring lawn care is not complicated, it is just about doing the right jobs at the right time. Clean up, feed, stop weeds early and water well, and your lawn will reward you with thick, green growth that lasts all summer. Get your spring lawn care right in the first few weeks and the rest of the year takes care of itself.

Want a month by month plan for your lawn? Download our Free Lawn Calendar. It maps out exactly what to do and when, with the right products for each season.