DON'T DETHATCH Your LAWN Before Watching - Your Questions Answered

one of the best ways you can improve your lawn is to dethatch it now this is an easy process but many people don't really understand much about it why should you do it at all when's the best time and a whole bunch of other questions you really need to understand before you get started this isn't a textbook course it's to help your lawn look better and make it easier for you the first question is what is dethatching your lawn actually doing and is it necessary well the short answer is for most lawns it's going to really help because defaction is basically raking your lawn to get rid of anything that shouldn't be there that includes things like twigs acorns pine needles and of course thatch now thatch is actually just dead grass or dead grass blades that have folded down but all that junk is going to surround the good grass blades and that'll cause you two problems first that dead mat will prevent things like water and fertilizer from getting deep into the soil but the second problem is it also prevents your healthy grass from being able to spread out easily and give you a thick healthy lawn next question is when is the best time of year to dethatch your lawn now people commonly do it in the spring in the fall but the real answer is you can do it any time of year with a couple of exceptions don't do it during the winter and you want to avoid the hottest time of the summer for me personally i won't dethatch any lawn if the temps above about 85 degrees on any sort of a regular basis but what's the simplest and the fastest way for a homeowner to dethatch their own lawn well in the old days you had to rent a machine it was heavy and expensive and i no longer recommend doing that now you've got two much better ways first you can get one of these rakes this thing's called the groundskeeper two and it's designed for dethatching your lung with less effort now if you've got a smaller lawn this is a great option if you've got a medium sized lawn or a larger one like mine or maybe you're just lazy get a machine like this this thing is made by greenworks and it's absolutely amazing i know i feature this in many of my videos but every time i use this tool i am still blown away it's cheap and it's easy to use and it is fast so if you're going to do any kind of a sizable lawn this machine is a much better way to get that thatch and debris up another question i get a lot is people asking if thatch is a free type of fertilizer why go ahead and remove it at all well thatch is organic and will eventually break down but there's just too much of it for your lawn to use and it's not a very good fertilizer and if your goal is to have a really great looking line you're going to want to remove the thatch and give it regular feedings of a good fertilizer another common question is if you remove all that thatch are you just going to make more room for weeds to grow well the answer is you're trying to make more room for your grass to grow and there will be of course some weeds that will take advantage of that but the goal is to encourage good thick healthy growth on your lawn and you'll eventually crowd out the weeds and if you've got in-ground sprinkler heads you might be wondering if dethatching your lawn will damage them well the good news is if you use the rake that i showed you here the groundskeeper 2 or the greenworks electric dethatcher you won't hurt them at all because they use spring-loaded tines so when those tines hit the sprinkler head they actually fall back without causing any damage but if you rent a machine you will definitely destroy your sprinkler heads because their blades are rigid steel and here's a great tip if you've ever gotten moss on your lawn and want to get rid of it you can actually do it mechanically now many people know you can use a regular rake but if you use your dethatching rake that moss will come right up but a better option is again to use the greenworks machine and that electric dethatcher will remove all the moss from your lawn can make a really painful job a little bit easier about all that thatch you remove from your lawn isn't that bad for the environment well it isn't if you handle it correctly just go ahead and compost it mix it with soil or leaves and it will completely break down another reason to dethatch your lawn is when you're done it just looks better because it's helping all of those grass blades stand right back up again it's kind of like combing your hair but when it comes to your lawn lots of things can make those grass blades fold down and how many times a year should you dethatch your lawn well the real answer is it's up to you but for most people at least once a year is going to be ideal if you follow my recommendations dethatching your lawn is so much easier than it used to be you don't have to rent anything or buy any type of chemical and it's simple to do and the end result is well worth it i hope you enjoyed this video and got you to understand dethatching a little bit better if you liked it please give me a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you're not already for more videos coming up

Channel: Silver Cymbal

Views: 667,518

Rating: 4.9316745 out of 5

Keywords: lawn care, diy lawn, how to have great lawn, silver cymbal, silvercymbal, dethatching a lawn, does dethatching work, how to dethatch a lawn, power rake a lawn, raking a lawn, is raking good for your lawn

Id: NnmaQKh4VWE

Length: 4min 25sec (265 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 23 2021