Save Money With These Lawn Care Hacks
Taking care of your lawn doesn’t have to be expensive. Instead of spending a lot of money to keep your lawn healthy and green, try these money-saving hacks for a beautiful lawn without breaking your budget.
1. START A COMPOST BIN
Start a compost bin, and create your own mulch for free. Compost works well in gardens, flower beds, and other landscaped areas. Mulch can help the ground retain its moisture and prevent weeds from spreading. Some things to include in your compost bin are vegetable peels, grass clippings, eggshells, coffee grounds, leaves, and newspapers. Don’t add meat or dairy products, which will rot and produce a foul odor that will attract flies, maggots, and other pesky critters. Stir the compost occasionally, and within a few months, you should see results.
2. MAKE DIY WEED KILLER
You can save money and avoid harsh chemicals by making your own weed killer using common household products, which are environmentally friendly and safe for children and pets. Options for DIY eco-friendly weed killers include:
VINEGAR
Mix one gallon of white vinegar with one cup of table salt and one tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap. Apply directly to weeds using a weed sprayer or a spray bottle, preferably on a sunny day. Be patient, because it may take a few days to see success. This mixture works well for cracks in sidewalks and along walkways.
SALT
Sprinkle some table salt over your weeds, and they will dehydrate and die within a few days. Avoid getting salt on your plants.
BOILING WATER
If you want to kill weeds in a small area, pour boiling water over them. Boiling water will kill plants as well as weeds, so be careful to keep the water off of your plants.
3. USE COMBINATION PRODUCTS
If you use commercial lawn care products, adding separate products to kill weeds, fertilize, and prevent fire ants can get expensive, and it’s time-consuming to cover your lawn multiple times with these products. Instead, use products that combine weed killer, fertilizer, and fire ant prevention.
4. USE NEWSPAPER TO KEEP WEEDS OUT
After weeding your flowerbeds, place layers of newspaper in them before adding mulch. This will create a barrier that can prevent weeds from invading your flowerbeds. Newspaper is nontoxic and will decompose over time, so it’s eco-friendly. And if you subscribe to a newspaper anyway, you aren’t paying anything extra, so you might as well reuse it after you’ve read it.
5. USE A MULCHING LAWNMOWER
With a mulching lawnmower, you don’t have to bag your grass clippings, and you don’t have to buy lawn bags, which saves time and money. Just make sure your clippings are small enough to fall through the grass where they can feed the soil and help your lawn retain moisture, rather than form in clumps on top of it. You can do this by only cutting off one-third of the grass blades.
6. USE HOUSEHOLD ITEMS TO CONTROL CRITTERS IN YOUR YARD
Small animals, such as squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs, moles, and sometimes cats, can damage your lawn or turn your garden and landscaping into their own personal delicatessen or litter box. There are ways to deter these critters without spending a lot of money.
COFFEE GROUNDS AND CITRUS PEELS
Sprinkle used coffee grounds and placing citrus fruit peels on your lawn or in your garden to make it less attractive to a variety of critters that dislike the smell of them. Coffee grounds are also a natural fertilizer. Just add a new layer every couple of weeks as needed.
PLASTIC CUTLERY
You can stick plastic forks with the tines pointing up around plants and areas you want small animals to avoid. The cutlery won’t hurt them, but it will be uncomfortable if they step on it, which can help keep them out. This can also help prevent neighborhood cats from using your garden and flowerbeds as a litter box.
7. PLANT PERENNIALS INSTEAD OF ANNUALS
Annuals bloom once before dying off, so if you use annuals in your landscape design, you will have to replace them every year. Choose perennials instead, which return year after year, and you can enjoy your flowers every year without paying more money to purchase more flowers or plant new ones.
With a little creativity and some common household products, you can make your lawn look fabulous without spending a lot of money. Try these simple hacks to keep your yard healthy and green.