A shaded lawn area can be difficult to keep a lush healthy lawn surface if not enough light is present particularly in winter months when the sun is very low in the sky. Many shaded lawns will turn to moss and allow weeds to penetrate, lets try to help you out a bit by going through a 10 easy steps that may solve your problem:
- Allow the light to shine. If possible open the lawn area up to allow more light.
- Apply lime once a year. Lime will adjust the ph balance of your soil and may strengthen your grass.
- Over seed with a fast germinating grass seed. Use a rye grass type seed mixed in with a fescue. This will give you fast ground coverage while the shade type seed are germinating. Do this often.
- Fertilize the lawn area often, but use less fertlizer. Feed you grass more often in shaded areas than in regular lawn areas but feed it less per application.
- Always keep debris off the lawn area. Use a leaf blower to remove excess debris from your lawn.
- Limit foot traffic. Worn down grass will become weak and turn to mud, limit the traffic and allow the shaded lawn to recover before using again.
- Mow at a minimum 3 inch height. By keeping the grass blades a little longer we are adding just a little more strength to the shaded area.
- Be patient. It takes time to recover a lawn in a shaded area.
- You need heat in the soil to have grass grow. December / January/ February / March are not times when shaded area lawns will do well.
- Plant a shade tolerant type sod. Sod grown with a fescue type grass seed will survive better in shaded lawn areas.
The list above will be basically everything you can do to help your lawn out in shaded lawn area, beyond this list of 10 things I would seriously consider other options for your area. Shade loving ground plants, gravel, mulches or paving stones are just a few other options.
Where to buy shade tolerant sod in Vancouver, B.C.
Use the link below to get pricing and order shade type sod online from BC Instant Lawns: