Grass seeds can grow quite easily in almost any location, needing only a small amount of care to start spreading. However, once you have the big, thick lawn you want, you might realize that you actually need to control how your grass grows.
Not only can grass spread into flowerbeds, but it can grow far faster than you expect – here are some ways to control how it grows and spreads.
Trim It
Trimming your grass with a push mower, ridable lawnmower, or even one of those mowing tractors can make a big difference. (You can find the best mowers at Best of Machinery). Even if your grass is not growing upwards, it will still be growing outwards, and trimming down unwanted grass shoots can stave off the growth for a while.
For example, if the grass is starting to spread over an area that is meant to be full of herbs, you can always establish a boundary and regularly cut away any grass that spreads past it. Be sure to avoid getting the mower caught on a sprinkler or other solid objects.
It might not be a permanent solution, but it can allow other plants to establish themselves properly before the grass shares any space with it. This can sometimes give weaker plants a chance to grow in safety rather than being boxed in by deep-rooted grass.
Block It
Physical boundaries can be very effective at limiting where your grass can grow. Grass seeds usually can’t spread very well through any kind of blocking surface, especially if it is submerged into the ground in a way that limits root movements.
Even something small, like wooden planks stuck sideways in the ground or the frame of a submerged plant pot, can be enough to prevent grass from spreading into the isolated area. Raised boundaries like a hedge will not work, but you could slip paving slabs beneath the hedge to fix this problem.
Just remember that you are also blocking plant growth in the other direction, too. Cutting off a small section of your garden as a no-grass zone is great, but it will not allow the roots of the plants inside it to spread outwards either.
Prevent It
While you never want to kill off all the grass in your garden, you can simply try to remove anything that would allow the grass to spread in the first place. If there is no dirt to let it take root, then the grass usually will not be able to spread.
Many people will use pathways as makeshift boundaries between sections of their garden or even pull up the dirt at the surface and replace it with gravel instead. You could even use an old pipe as a kind of drainage ditch, with the pipe itself preventing the grass from going any further.
This is usually a lot more cost-effective than installing larger boundaries and less time-consuming than constantly trimming it down. Of course, this depends on the kind of house and garden layout you have since you may not be the kind of homeowner that wants to split up their garden.
