It happens every year about this time — spring has come, the weather is warming, and you’re starting to get excited about the prospect of jumping on the ol’ John Deere. But then the ice pack pulls back and your heart begins to sink. The plow guy has done it again.

But local landscapers say all is not lost. There are a few simple ways to keep Mr. Plow Man from digging up your lawn again next year.

Dustin Carrier, owner of Lewiston-based Carrier Lawn and Landscape, offered some helpful tips. Carrier, started his company eight years ago as a high school lawn mowing business and has grown it to six employees engaged in landscaping, patio brickwork and, yes, snowplowing.

The real trick, said Carrier, is to make sure your lawn sits about one half-inch below the level of the driveway.

“Every plow guy has those little feet on the bottom of the plow and as soon as the ground freezes, he’ll take them off, because he wants it to clean better, and that’s when the plow hooks the side of the grass and it’s gone,” said Carrier. “But if the lawn is lower than the driveway, the plow will just skim over the top.

Rick Gammon, who was running his landscaping business on Route 4 in Auburn before Carrier was born, said his younger competitor is on the right track.

In fact, he said, a little lower on the lawn, maybe a full inch, is better.

“The lawn will swell when it freezes, it’s going to expand a little bit,” he said. “Then the plow comes and — POW! — takes it right off.

“If it keeps happening every year, you may want to consider removing a whole soil layer, as far back as the plow pushes the snow,” said Gammon.

Take off the top layer of soil and set it aside, dig out an inch or so of the sub soil, and then replace the top layer, said Gammon, and that should fix the problem. However, he cautioned, you want to make sure you have a good four inches of topsoil in order for the grass to take root, while Carrier said don’t forget to slope the new lawn away from the house.

Also, whether you use a mechanical spreader or toss the seed by hand, you should work it into the dirt.

“You can’t just leave it laying on top,” said Gammon. “People get the wrong idea because when you sow the seed in the soil properly, you’ll still see about one-third of it laying on top, because you sow it so shallow. That probably won’t germinate, but you’ll smother the seed if you cover it too much.”

Where Carrier and Gammon part company, to a degree, is on watering. Both agree to water heaviest at first, to saturate the soil, but they differ on how much to water after that.

“I would water it every morning,” said Gammon.

“Once a day will help the grass to germinate, but it doesn’t allow the roots to go find water in the ground,” said Carrier, noting that a deep root structure will help the grass weather its next winter beating.

“If you are overwatering the lawn, all of the roots are staying in the top couple of inches,” he said. “So, what I tell people is, two to three times a week for an hour.”

Cottage blend is the best grass seed to use, both landscapers say, because it contains a mix of blue grass (grows best in full sun), rye (grows better in the shade) and fescue (which grows best in cool weather).

Like Carrier, Andrew Glidden started out with a high school lawn mowing business, only in Cornish. Today, he is sales manager for P.A. Lyford, which owns franchises in Gorham, Herman and Dover, N.H. for national seed company Scott’s Lawn Service.

“It’s good to have a mix of seed because that will develop the root structure to be more thick and more sustainable,” said Glidden. “If you always use the same kind of seed, eventually it will go dormant and look just blah. As long as you use the correct fertilizer, it will all blend together.”

Chose a starter fertilizer with a high phosphate content — as designated by the three numbers on a fertilizer bag, which measure nitrogen, phosphate and potash. But don’t use a crab grass “pre-emergent” fertilizer, which will kill the grass seed,” said Glidden, and don’t toss the fertilizer at the same time as the seed, or spread it with your hands.

“Fertilizer will have pesticides in it and, if spread by hand, people might have a reaction to it,” said Glidden.

It’s not a bad idea to keep kids and pets away from newly fertilized lawns for the first week, or so, he added.

But like the others, Glidden also has his own watering methods.

“A lot of people think there’s no such thing as too much water, but there is a fungus you can get from too much,” he said. “But, definitely keep the water to it. Give it a decent soaking but not too much — once you see puddles coming up, stop.”

If, instead of redoing the lawn, you’re content to fill patches, methods can change.

“What I do, I’ll be honest,” said Glidden, “because I hate having bare spots, I will just blanket an area. To me, the more seed the better.”

However much seed you use to fill in a bare spot, all three lawn pros say work in a little top soil first — or save money by using potting soil — and blend it into the existing lawn beyond the bare area.

“The microorganisms in whatever you use, whether it’s peat moss, or potting soil or a compost mix, will work their way eventually into the existing soil and improve it,” said Gammon.

There’s no need to lay down hay, the pros say, and while an annual rye grass will fill in far quicker than the 14-21 days it takes for cottage blend to sprout, it’s also “junk grass” that will only die off and leave you with the same bald spots.

The grass can go in, he said, as soon as there are consecutive nights above freezing. Any sooner and the seed could die when the water it’s soaked up freezes and expands.

“You probably won’t be able to do much lawn repair until the end of April, so you will likely have to look at the mud for a little bit,” he said.

And what of next year? Both Carrier and Gammon plow yards during the winter. Does one job feed the other?

“We damage very few lawns now, because if we do, guess who they’re going to call?” said Gammon, with a laugh. “And they want us to do it for free, because we are landscapers, so we should have known not to scalp it in the first place.”

How to repair dead grass

By MetroCreative

A patch of dead grass on an otherwise lush lawn can be a frustrating eyesore for homeowners. Whether lawn care is your passion or just something you do to maintain the value of your home, dead grass can be exasperating.But as unsightly as dead grass can be, addressing it and restoring the dead patches can be somewhat simple. Before you can restore grass, however, you must first identify the source of the problem.

Grass often dies because of urine damage, which is typically characterized by a dead spot surrounded by otherwise green grass. Grub infestation might be at fault when dead grass appears, and such an infestation often produces patches of light brown grass that are scattered throughout the lawn.

It’s also possible that dead grass is a result of human error. If your lawn was overfertilized, then patches of gray-green grass may appear. Fungal disease is another common culprit behind dead grass, and such disease can manifest itself in different ways.

Once you have identified why the grass is dead, which may require the help of a professional, then you can begin to treat your lawn.

Urine damage

Urine damage is often limited to a particular area of the grass where your family pet routinely relieves itself. Once a particular patch of grass has worn down, the pet may move on to another spot. But if you quickly notice a dead spot due to urine damage, you can train the animal to urinate elsewhere, limiting the damage it causes.

When repairing the grass, dig a hole that’s roughly four inches deep and fill it with fresh soil until it’s level with the soil surrounding the dead patch. Then you can sprinkle seed on top of the freshly laid soil and water the spot. Grass should grow in and stay green so long as you prevent further urine damage.

Insect damage

Addressing dead spots caused by insect damage can be a little more complicated, and some homeowners may prefer to hire a professional. If you want to handle the problem on your own, apply pesticide to the affected areas so the insects behind the problem are killed.

Once the insects are no more, cut the grass, raking the affected area to remove the dead grass and any additional debris. Scatter grass seed over the affected areas and then apply an appropriate fertilizer and water immediately. Professionals may know just the right fertilizer for your lawn, so even if you want to go it alone, visit a local lawn care center to ask for advice about addressing your particular problem.

Fertilizer damage

Fertilizer damage can also prove difficult to address, as applying fresh seeds too soon can kill any freshly growing seedlings. So grass that has been damaged by overfertilization must first be allowed to fully die. Once that has happened, the grass can be cut and any remaining debris or dead grass can be removed.

Seed can then be scattered, and you can even add some additional soil before laying down an appropriate amount of fertilizer and watering the lawn immediately. If you don’t trust yourself to use fertilizer correctly, then hire a professional to do the job for you. This will cost a little more, but you likely won’t wake up to more dead patches of grass down the road.

Dead grass can be unsightly and turn an otherwise lush lawn into a patchy eyesore. But addressing dead grass can be easy and can quickly restore a lawn to its green grandeur.