Yard Events – How to Keep Your Lawn Healthy and Weed-Free

Yard Events is a beer garden-style venue with indoor and outdoor games. Enjoy great food and drinks including happy hour deals at this fun and entertaining space!

Yard Events

Clients often perceive backyard events as inexpensive and flexible compared to those hosted at commercial venues. It’s your job to help them understand the true cost of hosting an event at a private site. Visit https://rusticyardevents.com/ to learn more.

A well-groomed lawn is the backdrop for many backyard events and creates a pleasant impression on your guests. However, these gatherings can stress your grass. Heavy foot traffic compacts the soil and restricts water and air to the roots, leading to damaged or browned areas. Proactive strategies reduce this stress and keep your yard looking lush.

Before your guests arrive, perform a walk-through of the yard and take note of any problem areas. If you notice bald spots, reseeding or fresh sod can revitalize these areas. Raking and trimming bushes, flower beds and hedges makes for a neater appearance. Adding a 3-inch layer of mulch over the soil in flower beds and shrubbery provides a crisp finish and helps prevent weeds from growing.

If your event is held during the heat of summer, you may want to feature a misting station or provide handheld fans for guests. In addition, setting up a fire pit or having some seating in shady areas allows your guests to escape the sun if necessary.

Finally, adjusting your regular watering schedule to stop a day or two before the party can help your lawn remain firm enough to handle the increased activity without damaging the soil. This is especially important if you have been using fertilizers or herbicides, which need time to fully work. Taking these proactive steps will help your lawn look its best while your guests are enjoying themselves in your backyard celebration.

Fertilize

In order for lawns to be healthy and fight off weeds, they need the right balance of nutrients. Fertilizer provides those nutrients to ensure that grass has everything it needs to thrive.

Cool-season grasses, such as Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass and tall fescue, should be fertilized in late spring, early summer and fall. Fine fescue does well in shaded lawn areas and can tolerate colder winters and hot, dry conditions better than other cool-season grasses.

Warm-season grasses, such as St. Augustine, centipede, bahia and zoysia, need to be fertilizer in the spring and early summer. They can be fertilized again in the fall, but only if the ground has thawed and the temperatures have moderated.

When applying a liquid fertilizer, place a tarp beneath the spreader to avoid spills and make clean up easier. If you are using a rotary or drop spreader, start at one end of your yard and walk toward the other end to create a starting and stopping point for each pass. Make sure you overlap each pass to avoid overdoing the lawn.

Avoid fertilizing near bodies of water as it will run off into lakes, rivers and streams, potentially causing harmful algal blooms and harming wildlife. Be sure to stay at least 6 to 8 feet away from bodies of water when fertilizing. Before you begin, take a soil sample to determine your yard’s specific nutrient needs.

Weed Killer

Weed killers are chemical-based liquids that target specific types of weeds in the yard. We have a variety of different formulas that are tailored to each type of weed. When used as directed, one application will kill the weeds and prevent them from returning for multiple growing seasons.

A good time to apply weed killer is when you’re mowing the lawn or right after fertilizing the yard. We also have pre-emergent weed killer that keeps pesky annual grassy weeds from germinating by getting into the soil before they sprout above ground.

Our most popular industrial strength weed killer is Double 6 and it is guaranteed to kill the weeds and prevent their return for two full growing seasons when used as directed. We offer both regular and low VOC versions of this product. When using a weed killer, always read the label. The chemicals may harm other plants, pets and children if applied improperly.

If spraying a large area, use a hose with a nozzle that provides a fine mist or invest in a weed sprayer that allows you to control the amount of liquid that is being sprayed. Spraying on a windy day can result in vapor drift that could affect other plants and trees in the yard.

Be sure to get the weed killer out of shoes and clothing when leaving the weed spraying area. Lastly, always rinse the sprayer or watering can and dump the rinse water on non-planted areas to avoid channeling it into planting zones or street catchment basins.

Lighting

A well-lit lawn provides a more inviting event space for guests. It also promotes guest safety by reducing the risk of trips and falls on uneven ground. Lighting can even enhance the ambiance of the event by drawing attention to certain areas or by creating a specific mood.

Choosing the right type of lighting depends on the purpose of the yard event. For example, blue recessed lights around a bar-be-que provide a trendy dance energy, while warm white string lights around a dining table create a cozy vibe. Lighting can also be changed to match the mood or theme of a party, like changing the color of a fountain’s underwater lights to show a team’s colors before a game.

Lanterns and other light fixtures add to the ambiance of any party, especially those with candles that give off a flickering glow to help keep mosquitoes away. If the event will take place in a dark sky zone, lights with International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) approval will limit light pollution and allow stargazers to enjoy their surroundings.

Pathways and entrances should be clearly illuminated to guide guests through the venue and encourage them to explore the property. Using solar-powered pathway lights, lanterns, or uplighting is an effective way to light pathways without compromising on the design of a yard. For an even more elegant and sustainable option, battery-operated lights make a great alternative to electric lighting.