In spring, your lawn may look vastly different from what it did when you give it the last mowing in the fall. During the winter season, debris can accumulate on the lawn and there may be dead leaves remaining that you missed and there may be animal droppings that have started to rot. All of these can do damage to your lawn if you don't remove them when you start preparing it in spring. This is why spring lawn care is just as essential as the care you give it all summer long.

Carefully examine the grass on the lawn to see if there are any weeds. These can grow rather quickly in the spring and need to be eradicated immediately. Remove the weeds, making sure you get the roots because if you don't they will only grow back. For areas with patches or clumps of weeds, remove the roots and then aerate the soil. This means to poke small holes in the soil so that the oxygen can get to the roots of the grasses or plants. Water the soil and then plant new seedlings. You should do this with all of the lawn and not just in the places where you remove the weeds.

Raking the grass is and essential part of lawn care in the spring. This helps to bring up the dead clippings and rejuvenate the grass so that it will start to grow again. It is also an excellent way to remove thatch cover that may be present. Thatch cover of less than 50% is not a big deal for any lawn, but if there is more than that you do have to take steps to remove it and raking is the best method.

All lawns need water in the spring. You should not think that the soil has received enough water from any snow or rain because most of this moisture evaporates rather than sink into the soil. Experts recommend that you should give your lawn at least 5 inches of water in the spring. Thereafter you should give it at least an inch or water once a week and during the hot summer weather, the lawn needs an inch of water every three days.

The water will help moisten the soil to ensure that any new seedlings have the fertility they need to start growing. You should also check the drainage system to make sure that any excess water does drain away and does not saturate the lawn. In areas where there is a lot of ice and snow during the winter months, watering the lawn early in spring serves another purpose. If you use salt to de-ice walkways or the driveway or if you live close to the street where the city regularly spreads salt to keep it from becoming slippery, water will help desalinate the lawn. Even though you don't spread these chemicals on the lawn, the wind and the spray from the wheels of vehicles on the street will carry them to the lawn.