Establishing the perfect putting-green lawn is a lot harder than people think. It takes time, tenacity, consistency, tools, know-how, sometimes blood, definitely sweat, and if you don’t know what size your lawn is, a whole lot of tears too.
Simply put, there’s no way to care for your lawn efficiently if you don’t know how big it is. We’ll get into why this is the case in a moment, but as you’re reading this article, we assume that you probably already know.
The good news is that there are a few simple online solutions to this area-based mystery, and today, we’ll be walking you through each one, as well as giving you some pro tips on manually assessing the size of your lawn if the online resources let you down.
Why Bother Figuring Out Lawn Size?
If you’ve ever bought grass seed, fertilizer, mulch, bark, sand, turf, compost, concrete, herbicides, fungicides, or even insecticides, you’ll be aware that product volume and application guides are defined by hypothetical ground covered.
In light of this, you really need to know lawn size before you buy.
Let’s take a look at the benefits of doing your due diligence before heading to the store:
- Saves money — If you’ve got quite a small lawn, and you know it, you can save money by choosing smaller boxes of seed, fewer bags of compost, less fertilizer, etc.
In short, you won’t accidentally over-purchase, leaving you with a bunch of excess product once the tasks at hand are complete.
- Fresh products — Sure, you can save the products you don’t use immediately, but they’re not going to last forever, and all the while, they’re taking up valuable space in your shed — Not cool!
What’s more, older products might actually damage rather than benefit your lawn, even if you follow the manufacturer guidelines to the word — Very not cool!
- No return trips to the store — Should you not know your lawn size, you’re not just at risk of buying too much product, but not enough.
It’s never nice when a simple task becomes two or more tasks because you run out of essential resources. You’ll then have to head back out to the store, wasting gas and time in the process.
- Proper use — For certain fungal and herbicidal treatments, you may need coverage of your entire lawn to prevent the infection from spreading all over again.
Now, if you didn’t buy enough initially and went ahead with the treatment, you’ll have wasted money on product. And to make matters worse, applying the treatment again may put a lot of strain on your grass.
Online Tools For Measuring The Square Footage Of Your Lawn
You could figure out the square footage of your lawn manually, but why go to all that bother when there are a myriad of online tools that make it incredibly easy — You won’t even have to get up off the couch!
Global Syn-Turf
Global Syn-Turf is an awesome app that pairs with Google Earth to give you super accurate measurements of any lots on your property, so if you’re caring for multiple lawns, you can have all the spatial details on lock in a matter of minutes.
It’s completely free, mobile friendly, and you don’t have to sign up for any annoying email updates or advertisements either — Hooray!
Also, something the professional landscaper will appreciate is the unlimited address input. No matter how many clients you have, you can get accurate readings of lawn size on the double.
It’s also super user-friendly — Just open the app, enter an address, then use the pen tool on the right-hand side of the interface to mark the perimeter of the lot you want to know about, and voilà; job done!
And get this… you can save addresses and information such as square footage and area labels on the app itself for ease of access in the future.
Pros
- Free accounts available: Whether you need to use it once or a thousand times, it’ll never eat into your lawn care budget.
- Unlimited addresses: You can use this single app to measure multiple sites for free, making it a fantastic choice for professional landscapers.
- Saves information: The address and measurement logging makes repeat access super efficient.
Cons
- Turf company: Global Syn-Turf has an agenda… they’re hoping you’ll use their tool to assess how much of their synthetic turf you’ll need for your lawn.
Google Earth
Most would consider any fancy apps redundant being that the folks over at Google already offer users a free tool for measuring plots of land.
Simply open Google Earth, type in your address, select the “Measure distance and area” tool listed on the left-hand side of the interface, then use the tool to map out the plot in question.
What’s more, most other lawn-measuring tools utilize the Google Earth software anyway. This way, you cut out the middleman, simplifying the process.
The only drawback is that the results might not always be quite as accurate as those provided by specialist lawn-measuring tools. That said, the discrepancies won’t be so significant that they’ll cause any serious problems.
Pros
- Free — No sign-up, no fees, just free information.
- No middlemen — No need to download any 3rd-party apps.
- User-friendly — Even if you’re not too good with tech, Google Earth is super easy to get to grips with.
Cons
- Accuracy — Results may be off by a fraction. It’s unlikely to cause any issues, but the potential is there.
Measure My Lawn
The great thing about Measure My Lawn is that you can use it like a search engine on a computer for a quick answer, or if you want a larger tool set, you can download the companion app.
Not only does the app allow you to draw out plots to ascertain square footage, but you can subtract objects or zones from the marked area after the fact to get the square footage of subdivisions.
Much like the Global Syn-Turf app, You can add labels to your projects when using Measure My Lawn, which is super handy if you’ve got a lot of jobs spread across one big property or multiple smaller properties.
What’s more, once your project info is logged, you can retrieve it on any device, meaning key details are always easy to access, even if your main device is out of action.
One caveat to bear in mind here is that the Measure My Lawn search engine on the landing page doesn’t always work with obscure addresses, so if you live in a particularly rural area, you might have to download the app.
Pros
- Deep tool set: A wealth of tools provides far more than just the square footage of a plot, making it a great choice for more complicated projects.
- Saves info: Retrieve project information in a flash on any device, so you’re never left guessing.
- Quick search: Don’t want to download an app? No worries; simply use the search facilities on the Measure My Lawn home page.
Cons
- Search success: The search tool isn’t always capable of pulling up an address.
Planimeter
If you want a comprehensive, all-singing, all-dancing mega land surveyor tool, then there’s really no substitute for the Planimeter app.
So, so much more than mere field area measuring software, with Planimeter on your smartphone, you can measure distance, perimeter, bearing, angle, and pull up GPS coordinates in multiple different formats.
As if all that wasn’t good enough, you can save, edit, label, and view your projects with ease, and if you’re working as a team, you can share your projects as screenshots or as KML data files.
What’s the catch? Well, sadly, there’s no free version, but to be fair, the app offers you great value for money if you’re serious about surveying. The company also provides a free user guide to ensure you’re able to take advantage of the many features in the app.
Pros
- Loads of tools: If a wealth of tools is what you’re after, then Planimeter is the app for you. It has far more applications than figuring out lawn size.
- File sharing: Working with a team? Planimeter allows you to share all your data with other users, streamlining communication and workflows.
- Free guide: The user guide gives you all the pro info you’ll need to use Planimeter to its full potential, ensuring you get your money’s worth.
Cons
- Paid-for product: It’ll cost you little over $2, but even that might be a deal-breaker for some.
Figuring Out Lawn Size Manually
If you’re not impressed with any of our suggestions, that’s fair enough. Sometimes doing things the old-fashioned way is more effective and satisfying, so before we go our separate ways, let’s discuss how you can figure out lawn size manually.
The 3-Feet Rule
There’s always going to be a little bit of guesswork involved with manual lawn area assessment, as you’ll be using paces as a unit of measurement, and paces vary from person to person.
However, for those of average height, a normal pace tends to land around 3 feet in length, so that’s what we’ll be using in this guide.
The Manual Surveying Method
- Step 1 — Count out how many paces are required to walk the length of your lawn, multiply it by three, then make a note of the result.
- Step 2 — Count out how many paces are required to walk the width of your lawn, multiply it by three, then, again, make a note of the result.
- Step 3 — Multiply the length by the width of your lawn, and that’s that.
This is a great method for those with smaller regular-shaped gardens, but for larger irregular-shaped lawns, it’s not fantastic.
Having said that, you can make the manual method work in an awkward space by splitting it into a number of smaller square or rectangular areas. Once that’s done, proceed as normal before adding up the areas of each shape to get the total square footage of your lawn.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are numerous options available to you if you need to calculate the size of your lawn. Some are slightly more accurate than others, but they’re all pretty great solutions, which is why we featured them here today.
Once you know the square footage of your lawn, you can care for it and your bank account effectively, ensuring you and your lawn stay green, if you catch our drift.