Lawn treatment made easy: a quick professional’s guide to grass seed, fertilisers and weed control

Admiring a beautiful, healthy lawn – with no flaws or bare patches – is one of the simple pleasures of life. However, few people outside the lawn care industry realise how much work is needed to obtain this end result.

From enriching the soil with nutrients to mitigating the effects of lawn moss, pests and weeds, lawn treatments require careful planning and a well-balanced set of practices to keep your client’s lawn healthy.

To provide you with expert lawn care advice, we spoke with Marco Cominassi, a professional gardener and business owner from Italy with over 12 years of experience.

The expert’s guide to lawn treatment

The first thing you notice when talking with Marco is his clear passion for the care of green spaces – having grown up in the industry, with his father a gardener before him, it’s always held an important place in his life. Now, Marco runs his own lawn care business, Greenhouse.

According to Marco, the biggest satisfaction in managing his company remains seeing a job well done and a thriving garden as a result of his hard work. The secret is keeping up with the latest lawn treatment trends and developments, as the industry – and standard for perfect lawn care – is continuously evolving.

Marco shared with us his lawn care tips and advice, which you can apply to your own professional landscape maintenance and gardening work.

Essential practices to improve your lawn treatments

"After COVID, many people rediscovered the importance of a beautiful outdoor space to enjoy at home with their family," Marco explained "and we saw a spike in the demand for lawn care services."

“However, with this renewed interest in gardens and green spaces, many households opted for a DIY approach characterised by a mix of enthusiasm and beginner mistakes – often needing a professional to rectify them.”

"Caring for a lawn is one of the most difficult parts of this job. There are multiple factors to consider when you plan your professional landscape and gardening projects, and you're never really finished – it's an ongoing process. And when something goes wrong, you can see right away if the grass is suffering. It will change colour and become yellow or even turn brown."

To avoid those outcomes, Marco offers the following advice.

Create the right soil composition

As Marco states, "Having the right soil composition is essential. Healthy lawns must be able to easily drain excess water and have a lot of sand to facilitate the growth of deep grass roots."

These two factors are particularly important because even resilient grass varieties can’t survive when drowned in water and strong roots are a key requirement for a perfect lawn: "If the roots are healthy, you'll be able to see it from the grass blades on the surface and you'll have a lush, beautiful lawn."

Choosing the right seed type

Choosing the right type of grass seed for a lawn will depend on its level of use, your client’s aesthetic preferences and the weather patterns in your region.

For instance, football stadiums and golf courses require grass that is particularly resistant to heavy foot traffic. For his compositions in the north of Italy, Marco prefers the festuca (fescues) and poa varieties because they look great and are remarkably resilient – remaining green even during the winter months.

When considering the aesthetics of a lawn, it can sometimes come down to a matter of practicality – if maintaining the visual appeal of a lawn requires constant weeding, it may not be a viable option for your client. "While the dark green hue of American grass varieties is visually striking, paler European grass can be a wise choice because its colour blends easily with unwanted weeds," Marco told us. "With American grass, instead, you can see weeds a mile away, and if you want your lawn to look spotless you'll need constant maintenance."

Regular mowing

“Mowing is another essential activity where many clients underestimate the required frequency,” Marco revealed.  He emphasised the importance of clear communication with clients, suggesting, “in peak season, lawns should be mowed multiple times a week when possible, so you need to explain to clients the reason why, and make sure the freshly cut grass is collected well to avoid thickening the thatch layer."

When mowing becomes a frequent necessity, having the right tools becomes paramount. You need equipment that can keep up with your heavy workload – choosing machinery famous for reliability means that even in the busiest periods, you don’t have to worry about downtime. Kawasaki engines are powerful, durable and, most importantly, reliable – Powered by Kawasaki equipment will consistently deliver a precise trim and won't let you down.

To make sure your engine is running smoothly year round, don’t forget to follow maintenance best practices, which boost longevity and promote lasting performance.

Watering well

Watering your lawn might seem obvious, but doing it well is easier said than done.

Marco explained that "Many people underestimate how often and thoroughly it needs to be done, while others overdo it risking the opposite problem. All in all, the process should imitate natural rain patterns: heavy amounts but not every day, and once you start watering it shouldn't be just for a few minutes. The water needs to penetrate deeply into the ground to be absorbed well by the roots."

Intuitively, the weather is an additional factor that plays a vital role here. If you live in a rainy area, you might need to focus your efforts on draining excess water as well.

Pro tips to use lawn feed effectively

Another common mistake in lawn care is not using enough fertiliser throughout the year.

According to Marco, "Some people feed their lawn once in the spring and they believe they are set for the whole year; instead, you should aim for at least five times. Fertilisers are essential to prepare the plant to withstand extreme cold and heat in the most stressful times of the year. And after these delicate periods of winter and summer lawn care, you need to feed the grass with nitrogen to support its growth for optimal results."

Using high-quality fertilisers is also extremely important – Marco suggests you shouldn't compromise here. "New lawns are very resilient, they are ready to fight and thrive. As they age, however, they need extra help to remain lush and healthy. Use poor products or under-feed your lawn and the results will be evident: you'll start seeing bare patches, blades will be narrower and paler and unwanted weeds will outcompete your grass."

Selecting which fertiliser to use isn’t as simple as just looking for the right nutrients to meet a lawn’s needs – you'll also have to choose between natural and artificial fertilisers. "The artificial kind can be appealing because it is significantly cheaper and easier to use; however, there's a catch," Marco warned us. "While new fertilisers are engineered with polymers that facilitate the slow release of nutrients and have a lower impact on the environment, traditionally, artificial fertilisers have shorter effects than natural ones and they can pollute."

"Natural fertilisers, on the other hand, need to be understood well by the client because they can cost three or four times more than their artificial counterparts. However, when handled correctly, they are very effective while lasting longer and being kind to the environment."

How to deal with weeds and pests

Weed control can be a delicate area even for lawn care experts – the best strategy here is prevention.

"When your lawn is doing well, it closes all the gaps, leaving no space for weeds," Marco explained. "A lawn at the top of its game will hardly have any issues and will be able to outcompete weeds for vital resources."

If instead your lawn is in poor condition and prevention fails, eradicating even common lawn weeds can be a tough challenge. "Cutting might not be an option as you'll often spread the seeds and exacerbate the problem. So, in areas where chemical weed killers are banned, uprooting the weeds manually is the only option. Unfortunately, this solution requires a big team and a lot of time when the infestation is severe."

Chemical products are also not recommended when it comes to taking care of insects and pests. The use of traditional pesticides is banned in many countries and, even where they’re available to use, these products tend to eliminate both pests and healthy elements of the lawn indiscriminately, and are damaging to the environment.

"However, this is a promising area where lawn care is evolving fast," Marco revealed. "There are now effective natural methods to deal with harmful insects like the use of entomopathogenic fungi, which are environmentally friendly and engineered to kill only unwanted pests. The future is moving fast in that direction and we should pay attention to make the most of these solutions."

The finishing touch: your lawn care equipment

Marco’s advice has hopefully provided you with some ideas for how you can adapt or evolve your lawn treatments – helping you provide your clients with a healthier lawn. However, gardening knowledge and techniques are only part of the equation.

Marco knows working with reliable equipment is equally important; "I think about my Orec Falciatutto 4WD, powered by a FS481V V-twin Kawasaki engine. It’s a monster, extremely powerful, it can mow anything: tall grass, small plants… even brambles! It’s also very reliable – I’ve never had a problem with it.”

“My brushcutter also has a Kawasaki engine, and it always turns on quickly, even in the winter, when I don't use it often. I can always count on it, and the vibrations are very low.”

When it comes to professional lawn care, the right tools can give you the edge on performance, delivering power and reliability that helps the grass – and your business – to thrive. Machinery Powered by Kawasaki can help you achieve that goal, delivering reliable and efficient performance no matter the season.

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