Tuck IN your LAWN for THE winter

 There is a little nip in the air, indicating the approach of fall.  This means its time to begin winter preparations for your yard and garden.  In this process, the lawn sometimes gets ignored because it stops growing and seems to present few demands.  However, the fall is a key time of the year in lawn growth and you can have a definite impact on how it looks next spring if you take time to complete a few simple tasks. 

 Cleaning up leaves is more than making the lawn look nice.  If left on the ground during the winter, leaves become wet, mat down, and smother the grass during the winter.  Grass does not completely stop growing, even in the dead of winter.  As it grows, grass needs to breath and matted down leaves reduce air flow.  Leaves also cause quite a bit of shading during the fall and early winter before snowfall when the grass is trying to store up energy.  Just as chipmunks store food underground for the winter, grass uses sunlight to make food which it stores in its stems growing underground.  If you have just a few leaves and a mulching mower, mulching the leaves and letting them filter into the grass is OK too, as long as they are not too thick.

 Speaking of mowing, it is a good idea to mow your lawn well into October and even into November.  These late mowings will not only help chop up any leaves you may have missed, but more importantly, will help prevent winter diseases.  You may have heard the advice to lower the mowing height a notch or two on your last mowing.  This can help alleviate disease, but be careful not to overdo it.  You are better off to leave the mowing height the same, but mow more often into late fall instead.

 Fertilizing during late fall also is a good idea since the grass, as we mentioned before, is still growing underground, even though leaf growth as stopped.  Since the underground part of grass is what allows it to make it through the cold winter and green up in the spring, a light late fall application is a good idea.  Again, be careful not to overdo it, no more than a pound of nitrogen (N) per 1000 ft² is plenty.

If you have an automated irrigation system and have not touched the timer since the summer months, now is the time to do so.  Grass uses much less water in the fall than it does during the heat of the summer, less than half as much.  That means you should only be irrigating your lawn about every 10 days or so and applying about an inch of water when you do.  Irrigate your lawn well into the end of October and even into the second week of November if possible.  A final deep watering just before you blow your irrigation system out is a good idea.  This will help prevent winter desiccation damage to your lawn especially if we have a winter without much snow cover.

 What about controlling those troublesome perennial weeds like dandelions and white clover?  If you have not already done so, fall is the best time to kill these perennial weeds.  As with the grass, weeds are preparing for winter and sending food reserves underground and applying herbicide around the time of the first fall frosts will be most effective.

 Lawns are generally care-free and it is sometimes easy to forget they need a little TLC. A little work to ensure winter survival will improve their appearance next year.

top