Do you ever look at your lawn and find it boring, plain, and unsatisfying? Well, there is a big chance that it actually is. However, no need to despair. You can pimp your garden and turn it into the talk of the neighborhood. All you have to do is learn how to stripe a lawn. Stripes on the lawn are a thing of beauty. A beautiful lawn in the garden can be a marvel to behold.
Gardening is a difficult job, more so when you want to make the garden look artistic and professional. Adding stripes to the lawn is equally tricky, but only if you do not know what to do. However, no need to feel stranded. We present you with unique hacks to make the striping work in your lawn look professional, even if it is your first attempt to stripe a garden.
Explaining the Stripes
First, it is good to understand what causes the stripes on the grass. With this understanding, you will know what to do to the lawn to achieve the desired effect. Also, understanding how the stripes are formed allows you to be creative and discover new ways of how to stripe a lawn.
The stripes that you see on a lawn occur when the light landing on the grass blades reflects in different directions. For you to achieve the effect, you need to bend one row of the grass to face one direction and another row to face the opposite direction. This way, they reflect light towards different directions, thereby achieving the effect of stripes. However, you need to do this neatly and precisely to achieve that professional look.
What You Need for The Job
Like any other job, your first need to plan your work. Therefore, get yourself a pen and a piece of paper. These are crucial for mapping the garden and helping you decide how to stripe your garden. These are especially crucial when you are striping your garden for the first time.
You will also need a cylinder mower. This type of mower is desired because of the effects it achieves on the grass. The cylinder mowers have a roller installed at their back that presses against the grass as you mow. The grass bends due to the pressure from the roller, thereby achieving the desired stripes on the lawn. Quite simple, don’t you think?
If you do not have a cylinder mower, do not panic. We have a professional hack that you can use with the lawnmower that you have. The tip is to get a striping kit from any garden tools store and attach it to your lawnmower. The striping kit performs the same job as the roller in the cylinder mower. It will bend the grass towards the desired direction and stripe your garden.
Your main objective is to cut the grass and have it flattened. Therefore, if you cannot afford the striping kit to attach to your usual lawnmower, then be creative. If you a familiar with DIY, create something in your garage that you can rig to your mower and have it flatten the grass as you mow.
Prepare The Lawn
The first step you should take when learning how to stripe your lawn is to prepare your garden. Achieving a professional look on your lawn is only possible when the grass is healthy. Therefore, you should first prepare the garden by making the grass healthy. Do this by removing any weeds and molds. Also, you need the lawn to be covered in grass. This means that you look for any patches in the garden that do not have grass and cover them. Having grass on all parts of the lawn will not only make the end results neat but also make the mowing work easy for you.
Preparing the garden is a time-consuming task that can take up to weeks. During this time, allow the grass to grow, and cover all patches. Get rid of any unwanted objects in the garden. Remove rocks, toys, and other objects in the garden.
Plan Your Work
The next step is for you to sketch your garden. Remember the pen and paper? This is where to use them. Try drawing an outline of the garden. The sketch gives you a visual guide of the lawn and allows you to decide where to start mowing. The sketch is especially important if the lawn has an irregular shape. Use the sketch to decide the edge from which you will start.
The sketch also allows you to determine the direction of the stripes. If you are having a hard time visualizing how the stripes should run across the garden, you should definitely sketch.
Once you have mowed the same lawn a couple of times, you might not need to draw sketches anymore. The shape of the lawn will be imprinted in your mind. Also, you shall have identified the pace to begin mowing and decided on the direction of the stripes. Sketching gives you a solid plan to follow and eliminates any risk of errors that you will regret.
Mowing The Lawn
The next step is beginning the actual striping process. However, this does not mean taking the lawnmower and pushing it across the lawn until all grass is cut. Instead, it requires a systematic approach. Remember, you are learning how to stripe a lawn like a professional. Therefore, begin by setting your machine.
Select the highest height in the lawnmower setting. Refer to your map and identify the place where to begin mowing. Pace the lawnmower along one of the edges of the lawn. Doing so ensures that you cut the grass right to the edge of the lawn without missing a single grass blade.
Make sure it is at a right angle then begin to mow in a straight line until you reach the end of the lawn. Turn the lawnmower 180 degrees so that it faces the direction you are from and repeat the process. Take your time and repeat the process until you finish mowing the whole lawn. This process is the same, even if the garden has an irregular shape.
Pro Tips and Tricks of How to Stripe a Lawn
Remember the advice to set your lawnmower to the highest height? Well, there is a precise reason for that. Setting your lawnmower to the highest height allows the roller to bend the grass with ease. The long grass height achieves the best stripes because their blades reflect more light. Although it is still possible to stripe short grass, it does not produce pleasing results as when the grass blades are long. Long grass bends easily to produce vivid stripes.
Also, striping the long height grass allows the grass to grow better. Therefore, your lawn will appear full of grass as no patches will be seen. The maximum grass height setting on your lawn mower will ensure that the grass is not too short to stripe perfectly, nor too long to the point of being bushy.
You can enhance the stripes on your lawn by double cutting. Do this by repeating the mowing process the exact way you did it the first time. Be careful not to mow the lawn in the opposite direction. Restart the mowing process from the point you had identified your plan. As long as you ensure the second mowing follows the straight line set by the first instance of mowing, you will be fine. Repeating the process bends the grass further and allows it to reflect more light. This makes the stripes sharp and distinct.
Also, you can achieve the same effect without cutting the grass the second time you mow. Simply turn off the mower engine and allow the roller to press the grass as you follow the already set stripes. This will bend the grass on the lawn more, resulting in sharper contrasts between the stripes.
It is easy to decide the direction of the stripes when your lawn has a rectangle or square shape. However, you will notice some difficulty in cutting the grass at the corners or in boxed areas, in case your lawn is fenced. All you need to overcome the probe is a strimmer. Use it to cut the grass in places that you find hard to fit your lawnmower.
Final Thoughts
Mowing the lawn is an easy job. However, not everyone knows how to stripe a lawn properly. You need to understand what forms the stripes on the grass before you can stripe your lawn. Just know that they form when light reflects in different directions.
Remember to prepare your garden, plan your work by sketching and having a lawnmower that has a roller attached to its rear. Just follow these hacks that we have provided, and you will be okay. You now do not have any excuse not to stripe your lawn and turn your garden into a masterpiece. Have fun striping your lawn.
