It’s a little-known fact that most people don’t sharpen their lawn mower blades nearly often enough. One of the ways you can tell that the blades on your lawn mower need to be sharpened is to take a look at the lawn either just after mowing or the day after mowing the lawn. If the top of the grass blades is cut smooth like a knife just went over them, then the lawn mower blade is still sharp. However, if it is supper jagged with lots of fibers coming out of the top of the freshly cut blade, then the lawn mower blade needs to be sharpened.

While we are on the topic of mowing the lawn, it’s good to start mowing now, rather than letting the grass get too tall. However, it’s not quite time to fertilize just yet. Hold off on adding fertilizer to your warm season lawns until May. When we fertilize too early in the season, we encourage diseases like large patch to attack the grass and create holes that can then be exploited by the weeds.

So, remember to sharpen the lawnmower blades in April and don’t fertilize until next month.