Every year before Easter I make sure to get my lawn prepped and ready to go for the Spring and Summer heat. By nailing this routine, I’m able to get green grass quickly that stays green throughout the year. I’ve missed this window of opportunity before and ended up with more weeds than grass.
My 5-step pre-Easter lawn care checklist:
Complete a soil test kit: soil test kits are the easiest way to get a diagnostic on your yard to determine exactly what it needs. Go ahead and send it in ASAP and complete the next steps while you wait.
Clean the canvas: Get all the sticks, leaves, debris, and anything else off of your lawn that has been sitting there for the past few months.
Put down pre-emergent:Pre-emergent is the best way to protect your lawn from invasive grasses and weeds that love to pop-up and choke out your grass.
Use the results from your soil test kit: After a week or so, your soil test kit results should be in and a fertilizer recommendation should have been made. Follow these instructions to make sure your lawn is getting the right nutrients.
Put down mulch:Mulch is a great way to make your lawn stand out and contrast against your perfectly green grass.
The best pre-emergent for your lawn is The Anderson’s Barricade pre-emergent because it is the highest quality, purest, and safest pre-emergent. I’ve been using Barricade for the past few seasons and have had amazing results – but there are other good options, too.
Upgrading to a nice pre-emergent made a huge difference in my lawn. I had historically used a generic all-in-one pre-emergent and fertilizer combo like Scotts Turf Builder. This worked okay until I started noticing new weeds that I had never had in my lawn. Scotts just wasn’t high quality enough and didn’t seem to care as much as we did about our lawn.
We made the switch over to The Andersons and have started using a ton of their products. My first recommendation to you is to grab their Yard Star spreader. It is a bit expensive but absolutely worth it when compared to other broadcast spreaders.
Pre-emergents are herbicides used to prevent weeds from sprouting in your lawn. I apply granular pre-emergent to my lawn in the Spring using a broadcast spreader before it starts to get too warm.
Pre-emergents work by selectively preventing weeds and invasive grasses from growing at the same time as your grass. Weeds love the spring because fools like me will stand outside and do everything to create an amazing environment for my grass to grow. Meanwhile, weeds are feeding off of the same fertilizers, water, and sunshine as grass.
Nipping weeds in the bud (literally) with pre-emergents is the best way to get year-round green grass without a ton of weeds mixed in.
When do I put down pre-emergent?
The best time to apply pre-emergent is in the Spring as the soil begins to warm up. I live in Tennessee, so I put pre-emergent down usually around the first week of March – depending on what the weather is doing that year.
Later in the year, I put down pre-emergent again in the Fall prior to aerating and overseeding my lawn. This helps the other opportunistic weeds from enjoying my Fall lawn routine just like my grass does.
For folks that live further North, pre-emergent may be put down in late April once all the snow has melted and your lawn is thawed out.
How much pre-emergent do I need?
It depends on the type of pre-emergent you need. The Andersons Barricade has 18 lbs of pre-emergent to cover 5,800 sq. ft.
If you need to know how many square feet your lawn is, simply go to myyardsize.com and follow the instructions. This is super helpful because I know how big my lot is WITH my house, but not the actual lawn size that I would apply the pre-emergent.
What are the best pre-emergents?
I’ve used quite a few pre-emergents and have had varying results. Here are the three best pre-emergents I’ve used in my lawn.
The Andersons Barricade pre-emergent
The Andersons Barricade is what I used in my lawn last year and what I will be using again this year. Barricade is super high quality and absolutely pinned down any weeds that I would have normally gotten. It also comes in a nice granular form and was easy to put down in my spreader.
The next best pre-emergent is Scotts Halts Crabgrass & Grassy weed preventer. This is a cheaper pre-emergent than The Andersons Barricade, but is a bit of a decrease in quality. At about half the price, Scotts Halts Crabgrass & Grassy Weed Preventer is still a great option that will provide broad coverage against weeds and invasive grasses.
The Andersons Crabgrass Preventer is a great all-around pre-emergent AND fertilizer mixture. This pre-emergent is better suited for the Fall when growth is more active than in the early Spring when growth hasn’t started yet. The combination of pre-emergent and fertilizer allows you to keep the new growth weeds at bay while providing solid nutrition for your lawn.
