{"id":907,"date":"2023-03-08T15:24:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T20:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.seagrant.w3.uvm.edu\/2023\/03\/08\/get-ready-for-spring-lawn-care-and-enter-to-win-an-electric-lawn-mower\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:49:08","slug":"get-ready-for-spring-lawn-care-and-enter-to-win-an-electric-lawn-mower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/2023\/03\/08\/get-ready-for-spring-lawn-care-and-enter-to-win-an-electric-lawn-mower\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Ready for Spring Lawn Care\u2014and Enter to Win an Electric Lawn Mower!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tWith plenty of snow still on the ground, Lake Champlain Sea Grant staff shared the excitement of upcoming blue skies and green grass at the <a href=\"https:\/\/vnlavt.org\/vermont-flower-show\/\">Vermont Flower Show<\/a> on March 3\u20135.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWe were happy to discuss lawn care with attendees because green spaces like lawns are essential in soaking up and slowing down stormwater as it heads towards our waterways. Stormwater runoff is a common source of pollutants in surface waters in the Lake Champlain watershed. The <a href=\"http:\/\/lawntolake.wpengine.com\/?page_id=13\" target=\"_blank\">Raise the Blade<\/a>\u00a0lawn care guidance makes sure lawns help to keep our water clean and not contribute to nutrient pollution.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRaise the blade recommends these three simple practices:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\tCut your lawn no lower than 3 inches by raising the blade on your mower.<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\tLeave grass clippings on your lawn.<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\tCut no more than 1\/3 of the grass blade height at any one mowing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n\tThese practices do more than contribute to clean water. They contribute to healthy soils. Longer grass has deeper roots, which can unlock water and soil nutrients that are too deep for short roots to utilize. This keeps your lawn greener and healthier in the dry summer months when short-cut lawns may brown or wilt in the heat.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tGrass clippings on your lawn act as a natural fertilizer. As they decompose, they form organic matter which feeds the soil and roots. This means you don\u2019t have to buy fertilizer, and you can enjoy the warm weather without worrying about raking up clippings.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tCutting only a third of the grass blade height causes less stress to the grass roots, keeping them healthy. Plus, the shorter clippings decompose faster.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIf you do use fertilizer, it\u2019s a good idea to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/extension\/agricultural-and-environmental-testing-lab\" target=\"_blank\">get a soil test <\/a>to make sure you only add the nutrients that your grass needs. Phosphorus is rarely needed for lawns in the Lake Champlain watershed, so try to get phosphorus-free fertilizers unless your soil test says otherwise. You can tell a fertilizer is phosphorus free if the middle number on the bag is a 0.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThis summer, we are teaming up with the Lake Champlain Basin Program and the Lake Champlain Committee to raffle off another electric lawn mower! <a href=\"https:\/\/lawntolake.org\/win-a-free-lawn-mower\/\" target=\"_blank\">Enter to win<\/a> and send pictures to us of you \u201craising the blade\u201d at <span class=\"spamspan\"><span class=\"u\">seagrant<\/span> [at] <span class=\"d\">uvm.edu<\/span><\/span>. The winner will be announced on October 18, 2023.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/outreach\/lawn-care-and-stormwater-runoff\">Learn more about how you can Raise the Blade and make sure your lawn supports clean water<\/a> in the Lake Champlain watershed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With plenty of snow still on the ground, Lake Champlain&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1228,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/1228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}