The secret to a healthy Gainesville lawn is comprised of three main ingredients: Sun, Water, and Food. Today I want to focus on the one that a lawn cannot live without - sunlight. Depending on how much your lawn gets in a typical day, is one of a couple factors that directly affects the health of your Gainesville lawn.
Shade Trees. Nearly everyone loves and wants them on their lot. A big, beautiful, well-established tree can not only add beauty to your Gainesville Landscaping, they can also provide shade which in turn keeps your home cooler and will save you on your energy bill. What is good for your wallet, however, isn’t good for your lawn. Too much shade is often the culprit for an unsightly dirt patch in a lawn. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone tell me they think all they need to do is install a pallet of sod and their lawn will be fine. What actually happens is the sod looks great for a few months, but over time begins to fade and, six months later, their unsightly dirt patch is back. They're treating the symptom of the problem (the dead sod) rather than the actual problem (the amount of shade on that area of the lawn).
The bottom line is that St. Augustine and zoysia need about 4-6 hours of sunlight a day.
If your lawn isn’t getting that much sun then you need to have some tree canopy trimming done or a solid "plan B" which is why roughly two-thirds of the Gainesville landscape projects The Master's Lawn Care installs are for customers with heavy shade in their yard.
The funny thing is that once these customers accept that these areas will never be able to support a lush green lawn with heavy shade, they soon realize that these areas can be the prettiest and most welcoming places of their lawn.
A shady area can be a great place for a bench on a flagstone patio, maybe with a water feature nearby to enjoy during a beautiful day. And for large areas, ground cover, such as liriope or Asiatic Jasmine can be added and then be broken up with shrubs of different sizes and textures such as variegated pittosporum or Azaleas. If irrigation is a concern, you can use river rock and mulch areas to break up large areas while reducing the watering requirements.
If you have the right amount of sun on your lawn and are wondering about the other two basic needs for a healthy Gainesville lawn, please read about Water and Fertilizer by clicking the individual links.
If you’re searching for ideas on how to fix an unsightly brown patch in your lawn, or just looking for some Gainesville landscaping ideas, I invite you to visit our photos page. The page contains several photos of our recent projects designed by our staff and our testimonials page shows about 120 of our clients' thoughts of our work.
If you have any questions regarding your Gainesville lawn and landscape please don’t hesitate to contact us at 352-378-5296, email us at info@themasterslawncare.com. We’d be happy to answer any of your questions.
Related Reading:
- 2nd Basic Need of a Lawn: Water
- 3rd Basic Need of a Lawn: Food
- Video Blog: Side by Side lawn comparison
- TMLC Lawn Care Program: Six Visits explained