Home Turf Forage Cover Crops Articles & News Connect with Us Partners Plant the Best Benefits of a Healthy Lawn A healthy lawn is an important part of our environment and can improve the cleanliness of our world! A healthy lawn 250 m² in size provides enough daily oxygen for a family of four to breathe. A well maintained lawn and landscape can increase the value of a home by as much as 15 percent. Noise is absorbed by grass are as which decreases excessive sound. 8 healthy front lawns provide the cooling effect of 70 tons of air conditioning. Turf traps dust and dirt that is released into our atmosphere annually. 7 Lawn Care Tips Benefits of Certified Seed BUY GOOD SEED for your lawn. It will be a great investment for the outside of your home to buy good quality grass seed. Once your seed is established, your lawn will be around for a long time. Buy your grass seed based on quality, not price. Cheaper grass seed often equals a cheaper looking lawn! PLANT GRASS SEED AT THE RIGHT TIME of year. Plant your grass seed in spring or fall. Seed germinates best when soil temperatures are above 17° C (62° F). PROPER SOIL PREPARATION is a very important step before planting your grass seed. A frequent mistake made with soil preparation is planting grass seed on thin soil. A nice lawn is only as good as its soil! APPLY A STARTER FERTILIZER before seeding. This helps the seed to develop faster and grow into a thicker, healthier lawn. LIGHTLY RAKE THE SOIL SURFACE to ensure good seed to soil contact after applying the seed. TIP: Avoid burying the seed too deeply. If seed is planted too deeply, it may fail to emerge. A planting depth of 2mm (1/16 inches) is ideal. WATER new seedings until established. Improper watering is one of the most common causes for seeding disappointments. Best time to water is early in the morning. Never allow the soil where the seed is planted to dry out. Avoid puddles of water when watering. Water restrictions in your area? A little water is better than none. Think of planting one of Speare Seeds lawn seed mixtures such as our Water Saver Lawn Grass Mixture. This mixture is drought tolerant and does not require as much water as most lawn grass mixtures. OVERSEEDING your lawn every year will help thicken and improve the appearance of your lawn. If your lawn is thin and patchy, overseeding is the best way to fill in these bare spots. Overseeding is the best way to fight weeds and diseases without the use of chemicals. If your lawn is healthy, weeds have a harder time taking root. Seed is the foundation of a good lawn. Focusing on the advantages homeowners gain by planting certified seed is important. Our mixtures contain top-ranked varieties in national trials. Certified seed guarantees the seed you buy has gone through all proper multiplication, inspection and cleaning processes to ensure a superior product. Using certified seed means you know exactly what you are getting. Certified seed is tested and graded by accredited experts. Years of research and development went into these traits and they can only be reliably accessed through certified seed. Improved traits like dark green colour, fine-textured turf, pest and drought tolerance, and much more are delivered to you in certified seed. Certified seed is tested to ensure excellent germination. By using certified seed in our mixtures, you can be certain you are receiving the best quality product. Even when common seed is included in a mixture, we will hand pick the different seed lots to ensure that you are receiving the highest quality. Choosing the right grass seed. The difference between and average lawn and a luxurious lawn starts with choosing the right kind of grass seed. Grass Variety Characteristics Pros Cons Kentucky Bluegrass Finely textured Winter-hardy Excellent colour - deep blue-green Performs well in full sun Its root system spreads out to fill in damaged turf Rich colour of grass Cool-season grass Slow to germinate Requires more nitrogen and water than other species Less tolerant of heat and drought Perennial Ryegrass Dark green colour Has good wear tolerance Great for patching and overseeding Rapid germination Has nice colour Cool-season grass Less shade tolerant Roots do not spread Annual Ryegrass Light green colour Quick germination Capable of holding back weeds until other grasses have time to get established Is not shade tolerant May not survive the winter Fine Fescue (includes red, chewings and hard fescues) Very fine-textured More shade tolerant than ryegrass and bluegrass Drought tolerant Low maintenance grass Cool-season grass Slow to germinate Not as durable in heavy traffic Tall Fescues Winter-hardy grass Highly drought tolerant Toughest in high-traffic sites and hot spots prone to drought Cool-season grass Good heat and drought tolerance Large root system (therefore tend to grow well with less irrigation during hot summers) Blades are not as soft as Kentucky Bluegrass Prefers warmer soils for quicker establishment 99 John St. N, PO Box 171, Harriston, ON N0G 1Z0 info@speareseeds.ca A Canadian Company celebrating 50 Years in the Seed Industry