Lime Your Lawn - When And How To Lime Your Lawn

In that location comes a time when you wonder whether y'all actually need to lime your lawn or non. Sometimes, when the soil in your lawn is near perfect, and you don't get a lot of rainfall annually, you might get away without calculation lime at all.

But as we all know, lawn maintenance is a demanding task. Even when you mow it, fertilize it, and water it regularly, the grass in your lawn might show signs of stress. It's not you. It'due south the soil structure itself that has inverse. The pH levels in the soil change all the fourth dimension due to external factors, and the turfgrass in your lawn struggles equally a result.

So when is liming your lawn such a good idea? How much lime practice you need? And should you add the lime whether your soil needs it or not? Read on to find the answers to all of these questions.

What is Lime?

Lime is a mineral that has been used equally a building material for thousands of years. But its value every bit a soil amendment agent, specially in gardens and lawns, is a recent discovery. What makes lime such a valuable office of your backyard care and maintenance is the amount of calcium and magnesium it contains.

In geology, limestone is any mineral that contains more than than 80 percent magnesium or calcium carbonates. Lime is the pulverization class of limestone rock. And while it'south unremarkably extracted from mines, limestone is also found in seashells and coral.

And it's this high concentration of calcium or magnesium that y'all want to use to reduce the acerbity of your soil and inject the soil with a loftier dose of much-needed nutrients. All the same, at no time should you apply lime equally a substitute for good sometime organic fertilizers. It might have calcium, only it however lacks nitrogen which is essential for the growth of your turfgrass.

Benefits of Liming your Backyard

Of course, liming your lawn is more than just improving the quality of the soil. At that place are other benefits to this inorganic mineral that your grass will appreciate in moderate doses. Here are some of these benefits.

• Increase pH levels: As the pH levels drib in your lawn, that's a sign that the soil is getting more acidic or sour for the best interests of the grass. Mixing more lime into the lawn in the right amounts tin can stop this drib in pH levels and bring the soil structure back to neutral levels.

• Add together nutrients: No matter how hardy the grass in your lawn is, information technology will still benefit from a adept shot of calcium and magnesium in the soil. You oftentimes have to add together these found food supplements to the lawn when the grass loses its lush green color or shows signs of stress every bit a outcome of drought or loftier temperatures.

• Attend good bacteria: Fifty-fifty if lime doesn't take all the essential nutrients to improve the growth of the grass, the skilful bacteria in your soil needs it. Add together lime in the fall in combination with compost to encourage the growth of the good leaner that break down the organic materials in the soil.

• Counter rainfall impact: It's a well-known fact that the soil on the Eastward coast is often more than acidic than in the rest of the country. This has to practise with the constant rainfall that washes abroad the alkaline metal materials in the soil. So calculation lime will replenish those essential minerals and make the soil more arable.

Signs you Need to Lime your Lawn

Then how do y'all know that your lawn needs lime? Whether you lot go a lot of rainfall or not, the soil tends to lose all those precious alkaline elements over time. This means that the soil will turn sour, which is the last thing that your grass needs. So aside from testing the pH levels in the soil, which nosotros will go to shortly, how can you tell that y'all should add lime in your lawn?

• You notice weeds spreading across your lawn.
• Moss is covering large portions of the surface of the lawn.
• The soil in your lawn is predominantly clayish or sandy.
• The grass looks yellow and withers away fifty-fifty though you accept just fertilized it.
• You have had a lot of acidic pelting lately.
• Afterward a long drought, the grass still hasn't recovered, fifty-fifty though you're watering information technology regularly at present.

All of these factors frequently lead to more than acidic soil. Sandy and clay soil is oft more than acidic than loamy soil with considerable amounts of silt in information technology. As for drought, information technology often increases the acidity of the soil, which makes information technology harder for the turfgrass to recover. Y'all likewise need to go on in mind that acidic soil prevents the roots of the grass from absorbing nutrients, including fertilizers. This is why calculation fertilizers doesn't seem to piece of work sometimes.

Types of Lime to Use

Now that we know the importance of lime in alteration the soil, which lime works best in your lawn? Tin can yous grind some chalk and sprinkle it around willy nilly? Non actually. Y'all need to use either i of the following ii lime types.

• • Calcitic Lime: Every bit the proper noun implies, this blazon of lime is rich in calcium carbonate. It comes in many forms, though. You could add the pulverized lime, the pelleted lime, or the agricultural ground lime to your lawn. They all piece of work well in enriching the soil and reducing the acidity levels. However, we recommend y'all use the pelleted lime since it comes in a granular class which is like shooting fish in a barrel to mix in the soil. Both the basis and pulverized products are also dusty and are considered a health hazard.

• Dolomitic Lime: This type of limestone has equal amounts of calcium and magnesium. Information technology is less popular than calcitic lime and doesn't accept the same broad applications in gardening. Nevertheless, if y'all can't go your hands on calcitic lime, you can use dolomitic lime instead. It still has the same benefits of improving the pH levels and reducing acidity in the soil.

Unproblematic Soil pH Test

In order to know how much lime yous need and whether you demand it at all in your lawn, y'all should examination the pH levels in the soil. If the pH is nether half-dozen.2, that's a good indication that the soil is turning acidic, and you need to ameliorate it with lime.

At that place are ii ways y'all can go a practiced reading of the pH levels in the soil. The offset is to take a soil sample and ship information technology to a lab. Nearly of these tests are done for free, but they might take time to get the results back. So instead, you tin can test the pH levels yourself.

Yous volition need a half cup of baking soda, a half cup of vinegar, 2 plastic cups, water, and a measuring cup. When you're ready, follow these easy steps.

1. Fill one of the two plastic cups with soil from the lawn. Brand sure the soil doesn't take debris or roots of plants in it.
2. Separate the amount of soil betwixt the two cups every bit.
3. Mark the cups as Loving cup 1 and Cupe 2.
4. Add the half cup of vinegar to Loving cup 1 and watch what happens.
5. Mix two tablespoons of water into the soil in the second cup and stir information technology to turn it into the mud.
6. Add the one-half cup of blistering soda to the mud and picket the response.

If the soil in Loving cup 1 sizzles with vinegar, so the soil is a little acidic. Y'all have no reason to worry almost it since the acidity is likewise little to bear on the grass in the lawn.

If the soil in Loving cup 2 sizzles when mixed with baking soda, and then the acidity of the soil is too loftier. Y'all should add lime to the backyard to reduce that acerbity and increment the pH levels.

If the soil doesn't react to either the vinegar or the baking soda, and then you have neutral soil. There'south no demand to add together lime.

How to Lime your Backyard

Every bit with every material you lot introduce into the soil of your lawn, lime should be added with circumspection, at the correct time and in the right doses. Here's how to use lime to your lawn in easy steps.

1. The all-time time to lime your lawn is in the fall. However, if yous need to apply more 100 pounds of lime per i,000 square feet, and then apply one-half in the leap and the other half in the fall.
2. You should expect until the soil is dry earlier you add together lime.
3. Utilise a cadre aerator (but never spiked shoes) to aerate the soil well in advance. This makes it easier for the grains of lime to move into the soil.
4. Divide the amount of lime yous will use (depending on the pH levels we tested in the previous section) into ii halves.
5. Fill a spreader with ane-half of the lime and start spreading information technology evenly, going from north to due south.
6. When done, fill the spreader with the other half and spread it moving from east to west. That volition give you an even coverage of the whole backyard.
7. Add organic compost either before or after applying the lime.
8. Water the lawn to allow the soil to blot the lime and feed the proficient bacteria in the organic compost.

Tips to Lime your Lawn

Sometimes fifty-fifty the best plans get awry because yous forgot a little detail or something happens that is out of your easily. So these tips volition help you minimize the gamble involved with liming your lawn.

• On boilerplate, your lawn needs about forty pounds of lime per 1,000 foursquare feet.
• Your pH level goals should be between 6.5 and 7.0. The grass in your lawn thrives in these levels.
• Wait for a year subsequently applying the lime and retest the soil. If the pH levels are all the same beneath 6.2, apply lime again.
• Increase aeration around right angles in your lawn to improve the quality of the grass.
• Spiked shoes tend to meaty the soil rather than aerate it. Ever apply a cadre aerator.
• Don't apply fertilizers until the pH levels accept risen to a higher place 6.2. Otherwise, the grass will not absorb the nutrients in the soil.

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