Lawn Care Tips: How To Prepare For The Upcoming Cold Season
Never let all the hard work on your lawn go to waste this upcoming cold season. By winterizing your lawn, you can provide proper lawn care prior to the cold weather.
Winterizing is a simple process, which involves several steps that can help your lawn grow back in full force when spring comes. As a matter of fact, preparing your lawn properly for the winter can pave the way for vibrant and lush post-winter turf.
Depending on your preferences, you can either take care of your lawn through a DIY approach or by hiring local lawn care professionals. In my local area of Tyler, Texas, we’ve used a professional lawn care service Greener Acres Lawn Care to do all the preparation for the upcoming cold season to keep our lawn healthy.
In discussions with our local lawn care service, below are recommendations on how you can prepare your lawn for the winter:
1. Fix The Bare Patches
If your lawn has several bare spots, make sure to fix it before the cold season. A lot of things may cause a bare spot on the lawn, from wear and tear, frequent use or excessive shade, repairing the bare spots on your lawn is essential. However, make sure to determine the real cause of why there are bare spots on your lawn.
For instance, if there’s a spot where the lawn has died because of a structure or a tree that prevents sufficient sunlight, it’s worth re-sowing it with grass seed that is shade-tolerant. If the bare spots are due to pet urine, water the areas to eliminate the nitrogen content, which causes the grass to die and additional compost to that area to provide healthy grass roots.
2. Fertilize
One of the lawn care tips before winter is fertilizing your lawn, which can improve its strength for winter. Applying a quick-releasing water-soluble nitrogen quality fertilizer before the cold season will help fortify your lawn over a few months. Just ensure that the fertilizers are spread across the lawn and watered well so the nutrients will be absorbed easily.
3. Aerate Your Lawn
Aeration is one of the best ways to prepare your lawn for the upcoming cold season. If you can’t insert a screwdriver into your lawn’s soil, you should aerate it with either a manual aerating tool or a power aerator.
Fall is a great time to aerate since it helps bring nutrients, water, and oxygen directly to the roots through holes made by aerating to promote better root health throughout winter. But aeration before the cold weather applies to cool-season grasses effectively. Such grasses may include perennial rye, Kentucky bluegrass, and fescue.
Lawns that have warm-season grasses including Bahia, Bermuda, St. Augustine, and Zoysia must be aerated in late spring when such grasses start their peak growth time. If you’ll aerate your lawn, make sure to do it during early fall because it’s when the ground is soft. However, if you want to seed your lawn, aerate it before seeding. The holes may serve as incubators as the seeds germinate.
4. Clean Up
Cleaning up debris is another way to prepare your lawn’s journey as the cold weather starts. Big items such as logs and branches left on the grass throughout winter can have a negative effect on the health of your grass. The reason behind it is that surface coverage may block the top-side air and make dead spots come during springtime. Fortunately, these can be prevented effectively by cleaning up properly.
Depending on what you’re used to, you may opt to rake leaves and dispose of them in a compost pile or landfill. Some see good organic value in recycling leaves and others swear through spreading fallen leaves evenly and chopping them into small pieces with a mulcher. It makes a good winter blanket that’s free and nutritious.
5. Schedule A Lawn Renovation
A great way to beautify, repair, and improve your lawn is through considering a renovation. Basically, lawn renovation can help you properly clean your lawn and keep it beautiful. Before the winter rolls around, it’s a good idea to schedule a renovation for your lawn to help repair and fortify it before the relentless snow, cold weather, and freezing rain take a serious toll.
Oftentimes, a lawn renovation service includes improving soil quality, fighting off weeds and pests, mowing the lawn properly, and planting more new grass.
6. Control Weeds
One of the things you should know when taking care of your lawn and preparing it for the winter is that weeds grow during the cold season. Basically, weeds grow in areas with mild temperatures as well as declining grass growth. So, make sure to control weeds as soon as possible if you don’t want them to be your problem after winter.
Conclusion
Preparing your lawn for the upcoming cold season is important in maintaining a robust and healthy yard. Keeping it looking good may add curb appeal to your property and encourage your future potential buyers to visualize themselves enjoying your beautiful lawn. So, make sure to consider those tips above to ensure a beautiful-looking and lush green lawn after winter.
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