As the darker days descend, preparing your lawn for winter requires a very different strategy from the once-a-week mow and lavish watering required in summer.
Homeowners and keen gardeners alike can make some basic mistakes or omissions with their lawns that put it under stress during winter.
Right now, it’s important to aerate and dethatch your lawn to help protect it from the severe frosts of winter that are to come.
Making these efforts – especially after lovingly watering and mowing the lawn through summer – will ensure it’s in peak condition to not only survive winter but return to its former glory once spring arrives.
So, avoid these errors with your lawn care:
Final cut – Don’t let the lawn grow too long, especially at this time of year. If you’ve put the mower to the back of the shed, you might want to get it out one more time. Long grass is more susceptible to disease when thawing after a big frost. Ideally, your lawn will be about 2 inches in height.
Ignoring weeds – Now is the time to zap those weeds. You can do it in spring, but it’s a more effective strategy at this time of year. If you apply a herbicide now – the sort you’ll find in a retail store – they’ll be long gone by the time spring arrives.
Leaf litter – Lawns suffer when covered by leaf litter. While leaves can make good compost and mulch for the flowerbeds, they reduce the sunlight and moisture that lawns need during winter. If you don’t want to continually rake the leaves, mow the leaves into a thin layer of mulch – known as mulch-mowing. This will feed the grass and also let in the sunshine.
Fertilizing too late – Even if you think you might have left it a little late, it’s a good idea to fertilize your lawn now before the temperatures plummet.
Water worry – If you set up an irrigation system for summer, don’t forget to reduce your watering during winter. A lawn should have no more than an inch of water every week. Most winter climates will deliver that as a minimum.