5 Lawn Care Mistakes That Can Destroy Your Yard

Everyone wants a lawn covered with lush green grass and verdant plants. But what mistakes are preventing you from achieving this? Read on to learn about some common lawn care mistakes and how to prevent them.


1. Cutting Grass Too Short
Experts advise cutting off no more than 30 percent of the grass blade in a single pass. Cutting your grass too short or trimming it down to half of its previous size might be appealing—after all, if your grass is shorter, it will take longer to grow back—but this is not good for the long-term health of your lawn.
In addition to damaging the blade, cutting your grass too short can indirectly damage the root system. This damage will limit the grass's ability to collect light and absorb water, leading to wilting or even plant death. Keeping your grass longer will help it to grow fuller and become more lush.

2. Using Only One Type of Seed
Using a mixture of seeds will result in a mixture of plant types. Different types of grass will survive better in different conditions. The different species will balance out each other's strengths and weaknesses, resulting in a more resilient lawn overall. This will make your turf more likely to survive extreme weather conditions such as prolonged heat or drought.

3. Ignoring the pH of the Soil
The optimal pH for grass is between 6.0 and 6.5. For reference, a neutral pH, such as that of water, is 7.0. This means that your lawn's soil should be slightly acidic in order to bolster plant growth. Sending away a soil sample for testing can be an easy way to get a gage on your lawn's pH. If the pH is out of whack, it can easily be adjusted using sulfur or lime treatments.

4. Forgetting to Sharpen Your Lawn Mower's Blade
A sharp blade will cut your grass more cleanly, while a dull blade can cause bruising and other damage to each blade of grass. Damaged blades of grass are more susceptible to death or disease, so using a sharp lawn mower blade can contribute to the overall health of your lawn.
Most people should sharpen their lawn mower blades approximately twice a year. A good sign that your blade is too dull is that your lawn mower is tearing or crushing your grass instead of cutting it cleanly.

5. Collecting Grass Clippings
Many lawn mowers come with an attached bag that will gather up the grass as it is cut. This is a visually appealing strategy, but it is not good for your lawn's long-term health. Instead, you should leave the grass clippings spread around your lawn. This self-mulching strategy will help fertilize your remaining grass. In particular, this is useful in maintaining your soil's nitrogen levels—a key factor in lawn health.

If you can avoid making these 5 common lawn care mistakes, you will enjoy a lush, green lawn throughout the year.

 

3 Tax Implications That Arise When You Sell Your Home

It's easy to get tunnel vision when selling a home. All you're focused on is whether you'll meet your asking price. Yet, if you aren't taking into consideration the tax implications of selling your home, you may be making a huge mistake. Here's what you need to consider before you sell.


1. You Pay Lower Taxes Only When Selling Your Primary Residence 
Homeowners get lots of tax rebates and credits. You can claim a tax deduction just for buying a new home. When you are selling your home, you need to know that these tax credits apply only if you are selling your primary dwelling, not your rental property or vacation home.

2. You May Exclude Gains IF You Meet Ownership and Use Tests 
How long you've been in your home will have a huge effect on how any gains made from selling your property are treated. Short-term gains get taxed higher than long-term gains. The IRS institutes the ownership and use tests to determine if a homeowner can exclude some or all of the gains from selling a home.
According to the IRS, you have to have both lived in the primary residence that was sold and owned it for a minimum of two years before it can be excluded. On top of that, those two years have to fall within a 5-year window between the date that you bought the property and the date that you sold it.
Say you sell your home for a million dollars. The most that you can exclude from your taxes is $500K if you own the property jointly with someone ($250K for individuals). The rest of the gains have to be counted and taxed as part of your regular income. If you lost money when you sold your home, you cannot deduct the loss from your income; it is just reported as a loss.

3. You Don't Always Have to Report a Home Sale on Your Taxes
Before you disclose any gains on your taxes, make sure that you actually have to report them. If you sold a small parcel of land for perhaps $20K, you may not even have to declare it: the reporting threshold is $250K for an individual.
If you have gains above and beyond that $250K, they have to be reported. Whether to exclude any part of your gains is up to you. You could choose not to exclude any of them.
You do have to report gains made from selling a second house, but you can still exclude any gains made from selling your primary home—that is, if you sell them both in the same year. You will have to pay taxes for at least one of these dwellings. And you have to report any gains from any rental property that you lease out unless you meet the ownership and use tests discussed above for rental properties.

For more information and advice on the tax implications of selling a home, call or email me today.