How to Care For a New Construction Home Lawn in St. Louis

Congratulations on a new home!!

As soon as the keys are handed over to your new residence, the mindset of “protecting your investment” kicks in. One of the most beneficial ways you can protect and enhance your curb appeal is by making sure your lawn is green and weed-free. 

Fall is one of the best times to find a professional, local lawn care company in St. Louis to renovate your lawn. A new lawn is less than 5 years old, but you don’t get a “pass” just because you have new sod.

It’s important to know the history of your lawn to understand why...

History of your Lawn

When a developer decides to build a subdivision they move loads of soil to shape retention ponds, berms, and streets, and dig sewer lines. What ends up on the surface area that eventually becomes your yard may have previously been 5-15 feet below ground in the past. It is essentially dead soil, with no flora or fauna to carry on all the processes of healthy balanced soil.

What you don’t necessarily see when you buy a home in a residential development, is the myriad of vehicles that have driven on and around what you wish to be lush, soft turf.  Pick-up trucks, concrete trucks, flatbeds with lumber and trusses, dumpsters, shingle deliveries, and appliance and window deliveries all take their turns. When the house is first being built, crushed limestone gravel is distributed around to eliminate slugging through the mud.

All of this adds up to a compacted, unstructured soil that is fairly impenetrable to normal percolation of rainwater. So what are the first steps? 

Caring for Your New Construction Lawn

When establishing a lawn over soil that has been compacted by construction, it takes time to replenish and rebuild the organic matter content that was lost during the construction process.

First, set your lawn up with a professional fertilization and weed control service. Licensed applicators will apply pre and post emergent, timed at just the right season to be effective at keeping the weeds at by and slowly fertilizing the turf. This is important to start right away when you move in because the more mature weeds get, the harder it is to eliminate them.

In the fall, lawn aeration helps this reduce soil compaction by penetrating the soil and allowing organic matter, water, and oxygen to get to the root zone. Then overseeding helps thicken your turf to crowd out areas where weeds could germinate. Be sure to keep the leaves off the lawn in fall so it doesn't suffocate the immature grass. 

What else can I do to ensure I have the healthiest lawn on the block?

The last 2 summers have been extremely challenging for lawn care maintenance in St. Louis. The combination of record rainfalls, followed by soaring temperatures has been the perfect recipe for fungus (turf disease) and Nutsedge emergence.

A lawn compost top-dressing application is an additional way to replenish the soil with important flora and fauna that were lost during construction, which make many nutrients more available and benefit all plants. You can read more about the benefits here:  brand new lawn composting service.

Dowco is one of the few lawn care companies in St. Louis that offer this extremely beneficial lawn composting service.  We time it for the fall season with your aeration and overseeding. When you invest a lot of money into your lawn, it’s great to know that you’re in good hands.  At Dowco, we come back within 30 days of your renovation to spot seed any trouble areas for no charge.