Tip of the Month
To keep your lawn looking healthy and green, it needs one inch of water per week on average. If there has not been enough rain during the week, it should be manually watered. It’s best to water the lawn early in the morning so the water has less chance of evaporating before the grass can properly absorb it. |
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August 2011 Newsletter
Obtaining a beautifully manicured lawn requires more than just cutting the grass with a mower. To make the yard look its best, you have to use a string trimmer to cut the hard to reach grass, an edger around the driveway and sidewalk, and a leaf blower to clean up all the grass clippings. Properly maintaining your handheld outdoor power equipment will ensure that they will work when you need them. Follow these simple maintenance tips to keep your equipment running like new.
Gas-powered string trimmers, edgers, and leaf blowers require fresh, clean fuel for best performance. If the fuel is from last season you should empty it from the tank and fill will fresh fuel, unless a fuel stabilizer was used. Most handheld equipment are equipped with two-stroke engines that require a mixture of fuel and oil, check your owner’s manual for the proper mixture ratio.
The air filter, fuel filter, spark plug, and spark arrestor should be checked and cleaned throughout the season and should be changed at least once a season. The fuel filter is usually located in the fuel line or inside the fuel tank and the spark arrestor is located inside the muffler.
Replace the string trimmer line at the beginning of each season. Many cutting lines become brittle over time and can break easily causing you to feed the line more often.
The blade on an edger should be checked before each use and cleaned after every use. If the blade is dull or bent it should be replaced. Edger blades dull quickly because they often hit the concrete when edging so you may want to keep a couple of extra blades on hand. |
