My Lawn Is Hard As A Rock – 7 Things You Can Do

A hard lawn can be termed as the compacting of soil into a solid area that doesn’t easily allow water and oxygen to penetrate.

This ultimately makes it difficult for plants or grass to grow well due to lacking the necessary nutrients and space for the roots to push up the plant. It also makes gardening operations that involve digging up the soil difficult to carry out.

What Causes Your Lawn To Be Hard?

1. Walking On The Lawn For Long On The Same Path

This is the case when you walk on the lawn for a long time on the same path.

You might end up destroying the grass. Thus, we need to reduce the habit of following the same route each time as a shortcut.

2. Running Your Mower On The Same Path

As part of maintaining our lawns, it is essential to mow them and ensure the area looks pleasant.

Thus, always have a plan on how you will mow your lawn.

You can decide to start on a specific section and mow the lawn uniformly.

Don’t concentrate too much on one sector and forget to maintain the other area.

3. The Area You Moved To May Be Rocky

You might have moved to a new area whose soil is rocky.

You just need to take proper measures to ensure you make grass grow on the lawn.

The rocky nature should not deter you from having your dream lawn.

4. Playing Around With Your Pet There

It is healthy to pay attention to our pets and give them enough time.

However, ensure you use the lawn space uniformly.

You may play on the left side today and change the next day.

This gives the soil and grasses enough time to be better before you start concentrating on that side again.

5. Overworking The Soil

Soil gets compact when you overwork it.

Till the soil only once before you plant lawn grass.

Overworked soil gets very fine and does not form soil clumps.

The formation of soil clumps is important because the clumps allow air spaces between them.

How To Fix Your Hard Lawn

1. Walk Using Different Paths

You should try to avoid walking on the same path all the time.

Instead, try to diversify how you walk.

You don’t have to follow the same path saying that you just need to destroy a certain part and leave the rest looking nice.

This is an unfortunate mistake. Imagine a horrible patch on your lawn that you can’t hide.

2. Keep The Soil Loose And Pull Out Impurities

If you start seeing ruts and trails along your path, you can give the areas some quick aeration.

This will ensure that grass can grow easily.

Moderately loose soil is good for the grass and plants on your lawn.

You can also clean the lawn by removing any impurities, dried grass, or dirt that is visible.

This will give the lawn some time to recover.

This allows oxygen and water to penetrate and ensure the healthy lawn easily comes back.

3. Drastic Measures

This is only needed if your lawn is greatly affected. You will need to take up the top 4-8 inches of the soil of the whole lawn.

This will ultimately affect the lawn due to breaking up the soil.

You should then lay it back along with coarse sand to prevent the behavior from recurring again.

After the area is better, you can then decide to plant new grass seeds and ensure it doesn’t get destroyed again.

4. Removing Soil Cores With An Aerating Machine

This should be done after rain because the soil will be softer, and it will be easier to remove the core.

When it is dry, it won’t be efficient, and the machine can easily hit a hard surface.

This also helps you to remove destructive weeds easily.

Also, ensure you top-dress your lawn once in a while to ensure proper growth.

5. Train Your Pet

Pets are used to making a habit of what they do regularly.

Thus, if it follows a particular path, it will keep following it for a long while.

This also makes them realize that they can still walk on other paths or directions.

Even when playing, ensure you do so in different places.

Place some of its toys in different places outside to make it walk uniformly.

You can also put strategic obstacles that will help prevent the pet from using the same path.

6. Reduce The Rocks And Add Compost

If you have relocated to an area where the soil is rocky, you can help improve your soil by removing some of the rocks from the soil.

This will help easy penetration and growth of the grass.

Moving a garden rake across the surface on the top 2-3 inches can greatly help expose and loosen rocks for easy removal.

Also, after removing the top layer, replace it with fertile soil.

Also, you may add compost to increase the fertility of the soil. This will help to improve the growth of the grass.

7. Use A Good Grass Variety

While shopping for good grass to plant, look for the kind that can easily withstand most climatic conditions and soil variety.

The kind of grass should also spread easily without leaving any patches. For example, Zoysia spp grass.

8. Encourage Earthworm Populations

Use organic compost to attract earthworms into your lawn. You can also use lawn clippings and food scraps.

These attract earthworms into your lawn’s soil. the earthworms make tunnels in the soil and improve aeration. they also loosen the soil and help it to become softer.

When you add the organic compost, food scraps, or lawn clippings to the lawn, mix them into the soil so that they are in the soil or just on the surface of the soil.

Earthworms emerge at night and eat the dead and decaying plant material that they find.

You can encourage earthworm emergence by watering the lawn periodically.

Conclusion

Remember, for general maintenance, you should first loosen the soil to a depth of 10-12 inches using a spade and ensure to create air pockets in the soil.

Then add a layer of compost and peat moss for 4 inches. This will help add air to the compacted soil.

Also, rake the amendments into your soil.

Ensure you mix the soil with the additives well to enter the grass stems and into the soil.

While maintaining your lawn, ensure you water it regularly to ensure the health of the grass.