Its that time of year again when you need to start preparing your lawn for winter and help ensure that you will have a great looking lawn next spring.
Here are some fall lawn care tips from our friends at YardDay.com
Rake, Rake, and then Rake
OK, you can use a leaf blower or a lawn sweeper.
Raking the leaves is the quintessential autumnal lawn care task, but many people don’t do it according to the right schedule. It seems to make some sense to wait until all the leaves have fallen before taking out the rake and removing them. People might feel that all of their efforts will be undone when new leaves fall and disrupt the previously raked areas. It becomes a much easy task when one uses a leaf blower instead.
However, if people don’t rake the leaves continuously throughout the autumn, they will end up with layers and layers of leaves. These layers will accumulate moisture, which is going to create the perfect breeding ground for fungal diseases and bacterial diseases. The grass is going to be suffocated, and the dead remains will only contribute to the mats of plant matter further. Needless to say, these mats of leaves are also very difficult to clean and remove. As frustrating and thankless as it is, it makes more sense to clean the leaves as they fall.
Fertilize
Many people never fertilize their lawns at all, and their lawns will suffer the consequences. Autumn is the absolute best time to fertilize the lawn. The growth rate for grass starts to slow down as everything gets cooler in the autumn, but the growth rate of the grass roots themselves will usually stay the same. They’re underground, so they’re going to be less responsive to changes in temperature.
When people fertilize their lawns when the grass is at this stage in its development, the grass roots will be deep and full of the nutrients that will help the grass grow beautifully when the weather starts getting warmer. Fertilizing the lawn should be done during the late or the middle days of autumn, so September is usually going to be too early. Otherwise, homeowners just need to put dry lawn fertilizer on all of the grassy areas of a given lawn.
Weeds
Weeds are the bane of any lawn’s existence, and the autumn is a good time to start taking care of them. During the autumn, all plants are trying to take in as many nutrients as they can before the winter sets in, and that includes weeds. As such, when herbicides are applied during the fall months, they are that much more likely to stay gone when the spring comes back. To a large extent, homeowners are attacking them at their source when they get rid of the weeds at this point during the year.
Reseed
Believe it or not, fall is the best time to reseed.
Do the reseeding early in the autumn. Using a combination of mulch, fertilizer, and seeds for this process will yield the best results. This strategy will also work to help prevent the weeds from returning when spring arrives. The developing seedlings will crowd out the weeds, preventing them from becoming established in the ground. Planting seedlings in the autumn may seem counter-intuitive, but it is one of the best lawn care tips out there.
Here are some other things you need to do before the snow flies…
Now my only difference of opinion here is that I fill my gardens with the grass clippings and leaves. I clean out whatever hasn’t decomposed in the spring. I’ve had good results. I figure that the process adds nutrients back into the soil and helps protect the perennials from the harsh winter.
To read the entire article – http://yardday.com/lawn-care/fall-lawn-care-tips