If you are looking for a perfect lawn that will tickle your bare feet and give your house a look that will amaze your neighbors, you can bring this dream into reality. Growing a fabulous lawn does not have to take hours or days of toiling the soil under the sun, nor does it require homeowners to ransack their bank account. To get the best and the perfect lawn without overspending or stressing out, you can follow these simple tips for a budget-friendly lawn care.

Do not be afraid to get down and get dirty

Hiring a lawn care service that specializes in landscaping or a contractor that can take care of your yard, can cost ranging from $500 to $1000 per season. On the other hand, if you maintain your lawn yourself, it won’t cost you much. You only need to spend on supplies and a mower. If you are not afraid of getting down and dirty, you can find that Do-It-Yourself lawn care is not only very affordable, but also fun.

Buy a push reel lawn mower

Although rotary lawn mowers shred leaves and grass lawns that are vulnerable to diseases and insects, reel mowers can cut the lawn cleanly. Neatly trimmed leaves and grass not only looks nice, but also heals faster. Manual push lawn mowers run on human power, means that you don’t need to pay for gasoline to trim your lawns. Most lawn mowers use a powered reel mower for cutting the grass.

And while gasoline-powered motors can cost you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, a push reel lawn mower can only charge you as low as $80. Best of all, a manual lawn mower is kinder to our environment compared to gas-powered mowers, which produces a lot of pollution compared to a car, or even more, in just an hour of use. To know more about the history, evolution and types of lawn mowers, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_mower.

Fertilize in the fall or spring

A good, healthy, and growing lawn needs a lot of nourishment. Although, soil can give gardens certain nutrients to the grass and plants in your yard, the land alone can’t sustain grass all year. To improve your lawn, heal damage, promote growth, and control the weeds, you will need to fertilize your lawn in early fall and early spring regularly.

You need to keep in mind that you should not have to fertilize your lawn more than twice a year. Fertilizing too much is not only hazardous, unnecessarily expensive and inconvenient, it can also weaken the integrity of your yard and soil in general.

Try to make your very own fertilizer

A 20-pound bag of fertilizer can cost you at least $25. You can save that money and the trip to the store by making your very own compost for your lawn. You can mix nutritious fertilizers using some household ingredients.

One of the most popular concoction includes combining a bottle of beer with one can of soda, half a cup of dishwashing soap, half a cup of ordinary mouthwash, and half a cup of ammonia. You can also put composted food scraps and yard debris like fallen leaves or branches.

Want to make a fertilizer out of common household items? Click here to know how.

Make your herbicides

Annoying weed will wrestle with your grass for nutrients, fertilizer, and water. But you do not want your lawn to get a lot of toxic chemicals in artificial herbicides to slay these pesky weeds. Instead, try to use your herbicide using a mixture of table salt, a touch of liquid dishwashing liquid, and white vinegar

Make your pesticides

You can skip the pesticides that you buy in stores which contains a lot of hazardous chemicals that can be harmful to pets, environment, and humans. You can keep away whiteflies, mites, aphids, and other creepy insects with a mixture using ordinary soap and water.

To repel beetles and cabbage loopers, a combination of water, cayenne pepper, and garlic can do the trick. You can use a spray bottle to shower the grass and plants in your lawn with all-natural insect repellents.

Aerate your lawn in the spring and fall

Aeration, just like fertilization, should be performed every year during spring and fall. Aerating your lawn will give air to the roots of the grass, facilitate food absorption, and improve your lawn’s water penetration. You can aerate the lawn by teaming up with your neighbors and split the cost of renting the aerating machine.