Your Lawn Needs This Simple April Fix to Stay Green All Summer – Pros Say It's the One Job to Prioritize Now
Give your lawn a great start to the season with a few key steps this month
Early spring offers an ideal window for a range of April lawn treatments that can make a big difference to your summer lawn. Ideally, you’d do them all. But, in reality, homeowners are busy and can only dedicate so much time to lawn care. So what is one quick fix that can help a lawn thrive come summer? Dethatching.
I chatted to experts about what they think are the most impactful April lawn treatments and dethatching was highlighted as a simple fix that will help your lawn thrive come summer. This is because gently raking out thatch and debris from your lawn puts it in a perfect position for healthy growth.
Article continues belowThe One April Lawn Fix That Makes a Big Impact
If you want a thick, green lawn to enjoy come summer, you need to add dethatching to your spring gardening checklist.
It is a spring lawn care task I have always done when maintaining turf in public gardens, and at home, and a vastly experienced lawn expert highlights it as an impactful, quick fix to get done this month.
Jason McCausland, National Technical Director at Weed Man, recommends ‘a good fan raking’ in April to get the season off to a great start. And this simple April lawn treatment can make a big difference come summer.
‘This will remove a lot of the thatch and debris that has accumulated over the winter,’ says the lawn expert. ‘This ensures your lawn is ready and able to soak up the sun, water, and nutrients it needs to thrive in the summer.’
You can get a fan rake with a carbon steel head containing 22 teeth and a sturdy wooden handle at Walmart that makes an ideal tool for dethatching a small lawn by hand this month.
Thatch is a natural layer that occurs in all lawns. It comprises dead material, decomposing grass stems, and moss, and sits between the soil surface and the visible top of the grass blades.
You expect all lawns to accumulate thatch. A thin layer is beneficial, but when it builds up too thickly, it becomes a problem. A thick thatch layer acts as a barrier, stopping water and nutrients from getting down to the grass’s roots. The result is a spongy, unhealthy lawn.
All lawns will benefit from being dethatched at least once a year. The best time to dethatch a lawn is when the grass is actively growing. Cool-season grasses will always benefit from a light dethatching in early spring, but whether April is the perfect time will depend on your location.
‘April is the perfect time in many northern and central areas because the lawn is just coming out of dormancy,’ adds Jason. ‘But April is a bit late in warmer and more southern areas. Their lawn care season usually kicks off in late January, so timing is key depending on where you live.’
Dethatching and scarifying both remove thatch and debris from a lawn; the difference is that scarifying is a deeper, more aggressive approach.
Dethatching is recommended for lighter maintenance, but you may need to scarify a lawn if you have a severe build-up of thatch that potentially jeapordizes the health of your grass.
Jason is a Technical Coordinator at Weed Man. For more than 25 years, he has been an integral member of the Weed Man family and the green industry.
Other April Grass Treatments That’ll Make a Difference
Dethatching alone will help any lawn perform better during the summer, as it improves how much moisture, nutrients, and air get to the grass roots. If you want to improve your summer lawn further, which other April lawn treatments do experts recommend?
Before doing anything this month, Theresa Smith, SVP at NaturaLawn, hails the importance of doing a lawn soil test at the start of the new growing season.
She says ‘a beautiful lawn starts with the soil’ and a soil test will tell homeowners vital information for the year ahead.
‘It will help you understand your soil (soil pH, nutrient levels, organic matter content, and soil type) and what nutrients and treatments will help it thrive all summer long,’ adds Theresa.
‘April is a great time to do a soil test because it should inform every other task. This will help you use the right type of treatments and right amounts – saving you from wasting products and money.’
You can get a soil test kit at Amazon that provides laboratory analysis of your lawn's soil pH and the availability of 13 nutrients.
In many climates, April is when homeowners start watering their lawns in the spring. When temperatures rise and regular rainfall is absent, it becomes time to implement a healthy watering schedule
Don Chouinard, a lawn irrigation expert from Irrigreen, says optimizing watering of lawns is ‘one of the simplest and most impactful’ things homeowners can do in April.
‘April is an ideal time to establish this routine as your lawn enters its active growing season,’ he says. ‘Maintaining consistent moisture early on helps prevent common issues like disease, root rot from overwatering, and weak root systems caused by inconsistent irrigation.’
Lawns need around an inch of water per week to stay green and have strong roots. How long you water your lawn for can make a big difference, as it is more beneficial to do deep, infrequent watering rather than daily light applications.
Jason McCausland also advises fertilizing the lawn this month, saying of the April lawn treatment: ‘It is time to apply a slow-release granular fertilizer to give the lawn a boost and help ensure a green and lush lawn all summer.’
The best fertilizer for grass in spring is a slow-release product that provides a lot of nitrogen to the lawn. A good example is this premium lawn food, available at Amazon.
Theresa Smith is senior vice president of NaturaLawn of America (NLA). She oversees all aspects of NLA's business operations, including corporate strategy, business vendor management, marketing and more. She first started with the family business as a marketing coordinator and quickly became passionate about their mission to be environmentally responsible.
Don Chouinard has been involved in the irrigation business for 33 years, and is passionate about bringing technology to landscaping. After building and selling a successful contracting business, he joined sprinkler technology start-up Irrigreen to usher in new approaches to irrigation and educate fellow contractors about advancements in this field.
What to Shop
An electric dethatcher is ideal for larger lawns. This one covers a 12.6-inch-wide path and can be adjusted to remove thatch and debris at one of five height settings.
A bag of grass seed for overseeding a lawn or seeding a new lawn in the spring. The grass can thrive in any conditions, from full sun to dense shade.
Check the moisture levels in your lawn's soil quickly and easily with a soil moisture meter. It reveals the levels instantly on an easy-to-read dial.
When you should start lawn care in spring depends on the soil reaching the right temperatures. It differs across the US hardiness zones and whether lawns have cool or warm-season grasses. This guide to the ideal soil temperature to start spring lawn care reveals the markers for a host of seasonal maintenance tasks.
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