Ready to spread some seeds and add some fertilizer to your lawn? Before you do, you may want to consider measuring your lawn first. Knowing your lawn’s measurements can help you determine how much seeds or fertilizers you should throw-in. Playing the guessing game won’t do you any favors as you’ll only end up wasting precious resources. With the right approach and a little bit of math, you can figure out how much seeds and fertilizer to spread in your lawn. Here are a few simple tips on how to measure your lawn correctly.

Know where the boundaries are

Before you start measuring your lawn, you need to discover where your property lines are. If you just bought a new house, it’s as simple as checking your property documents to see where your lawn ends and where your neighbour’s lawn starts. The document should also cover any areas you think are yours, but in reality, are easements that the POAA (Property Owners Association of Australia) or government is responsible for.

If you live in an old house, it can be tricky to identify your property’s boundaries due to previous agreements or disputes between the neighbour and the previous owner. Thankfully, you can determine your property lines by requesting a property document from your local government. Now that’s settled, it’s time to break out your measuring tools and start cracking.

Measuring your lawn correctly

There’s more to measuring your lawn than just stretching a tape measure. In a perfect world, lawns have a square shape with straight lines and sharp edges. But this is rarely the case with most lawns so you’ll have to tackle this whole measuring thing differently..

Open Google Maps and use the aerial view feature to view your property. Here, you’ll get an overview of the actual shape and size of your lawn. Once you have a clear view of your lawn, start by breaking it into square sections. This will make the calculation process much easier. Also, don’t forget to number the sections for ease of tracking as well. Now that you have the sections mapped out, you can measure your lawn by using either a tape measure or a lawn estimating software through the computer.

1. Using a tape measure

If you’re not interested in dealing with computer-related software, then don’t worry. You can still use a standard tape measure and get an accurate measurement of your lawn. To start with, use the tape measure and start measuring the widest and longest sides of the square sections you created. Avoid measuring either short side of the section or else, you risk buying less seeds or fertilizers than you actually need. It’s better to measure the longest sides of the section and have extra product rather than to come up short and run to the store again and buy more.

Take note of all the measurements and bust out the calculator to calculate each section’s square footage. This can be done by simply multiplying their length and width. For example, if the section is 100 feet long and 100 feet wide, you’ll get 10,000 square feet.

2. Using estimating software

The beauty of using estimating software is that it eliminates all of the guesswork and facilitates the entire measuring process. Websites like mapdevelopers.com offer an area calculator that uses the Google Maps interface to make it easier for homeowners to get an accurate measurement of their lawn.

To use the area calculator, first switch to satellite view in Google Maps to get a better view at your lawn. From there, you can start outlining the area of your lawn by left-clicking your mouse and dragging it. The calculator will instantly display the square footage of the area. You can even measure oddly-shaped sections and draw around the house you don’t want to include in the measurement for more accurate numbers.

Using estimating software is ten times better than standing under the blazing sun and using a tape measure to get the numbers. It’s easy to use and it saves you plenty of time, which is why we recommend using the area calculator provided by mapdevelopers.com.

Adding them all up

After noting the square footage of each section, all that’s left to do is to add them all up. This will give you your lawn’s total square footage. It’s okay to round up the next 100 feet when you tally all of the sections up. This final tally is what you’ll use to determine how much seeds or fertilizer to spread on your lawn.

For example, if you have a 12,000 square foot lawn and each bag of seed or fertilizer covers 4,000 square feet, you can buy 4 bags knowing that you’ll have enough product to spread. Again, it’s always better to have a few extra products with you rather than be empty-handed in the middle of your project.