It might come as a surprise that curb appeal truly does impact the value of your home. For sellers, it can be the difference between someone requesting a tour of your home or driving right past it on their way to the store. Sometimes, buyers will consider the condition of the lawn in the category of "move-in ready." In other words, you may have a beautiful house on the inside, but if the yard isn't maintained, it could be a turnoff. 

Springtime is an exciting season for those that like to spend their time gardening and general lawn upkeep. Even if you're not a huge outdoorsman, there are still three simple steps that you can take to really upgrade your lawn and have the neighbors trying to keep up with your green grass. 

3-Step Process for Keeping a Beautiful Lawn

• Recover: remove any unwanted remnants of leaves, twigs, and moss that could hinder your lawn's growth.  
• Prepare: feed your lawn to help it come back better than ever
• Maintain: keep up with anything that might impact the health of your lawn throughout the spring, so it's prepared for the hot summer days. 

This may seem like a ton of work, but you can complete two of the three steps on the same day. Raking leaves, picking up sticks, and trimming bushes is something you do on a Saturday afternoon, and your lawn will reap the benefits for the rest of the season. Maintenance will be much easier after you've done this, so maintaining curb appeal should be a breeze. 

Recover

Step 1 for having the best lawn in town is cleaning up after the long fall and winter days that have covered your green grass with leaves, moss, and other debris. Even if you cleaned up your lawn before the first snow, there's still a good chance that leaves from other houses have blown into your yard and sat there for weeks. 

Once the snow comes around, it compacts all of the dead grass and leaves into the soil and clogs up the pores. If you don't treat this, the rest of your work will be for nothing because your grass won't get the right amount of water, nutrients, and sunlight to become happy and healthy. 

One way to deal with compacted soil is to rake the entire lawn with a high-quality rake to break up the loose, dead debris. Even if there aren't any leaves, raking the grass will loosen up the dead debris and allow your grass to breathe better. 

Another option is to use an aerator or pitchfork to create holes for the nutrients to absorb into the soil. This may take more time, but it is very effective at breaking up dead grass and other problems that might cause your grass to die. 

Trimming dead limbs on trees and bushes is another good wait to give your landscaping a facelift. Dead or dying limbs take unnecessary nutrients from the healthier parts of the plant. By removing these, the healthy parts of the plant can shine through. For example, a plant that is about to bloom might bloom twice as much if you remove the dead limbs, which will make it more vibrant and attractive. 

Prepare

Step 2 comes after you've cleaned up the lawn and removed any debris that could get in the way during the preparation phase. Preparation primarily refers to the hot summer that will kill your grass if it's not healthy and maintained. This phase can look like a few different things. Most landscapers like to fertilize and water the lawn to give it extra nutrients. The best way to get a healthy lawn is to feed it regularly. Most fertilizers recommend applying it spaced out every few weeks to avoid over-feeding or burning up the grass. 

Another option would be to repair unhealthy patches in the grass rather than fertilizing the whole lawn. If you find any dead spots or areas that you would like to improve the grass, place some sod down to encourage growth in that area. You might consider watering it a few times after first putting it down, so the roots have enough fuel to grow down into the soil. 

Weeds can create a problem when the March and April showers start to roll around. Weeds steal nutrients from the grass and can grow pretty quickly if you don't keep an eye on them. An easy way to prevent or stunt weed growth is to lay a fertilizer that includes weed prevention/weed killer. Beware not to use a weed killer like roundup that will also kill your grass. The bag will clearly state that it only kills weeds and is safe for grass and other plants. If you would rather save money and avoid the fertilizer, you can always do it the old-fashioned way and pull them by hand. Fertilizer will save you tons of time and energy but might cost a little bit upfront. 

Maintain

Along with keeping up with the weeds and fertilizing a couple of times, the third step consists of usual lawn maintenance once a week or so.  Mowing your lawn and scrounging for weeds will keep your grass strong and encourage continuous growth. If your grass gets too long in the early stages, it might use up all the nutrients too quickly and will stunt the growth later in the season. Of course, don't mow the grass too soon after you spread fertilizer or water the lawn. If it's wet, you might pull some grass out of the ground or create divots. 

Maintenance also includes keeping it full and robust throughout the summer. You never know when a buyer might be ready to take a tour. Keeping your lawn clean and strong will keep you prepared for any opportunity.