Ensure your lawn stays green and healthy right through fall and winter. When it comes to lawn care, most people focus all their efforts during the spring and summer. However, if you want to keep your lawn looking healthy and beautiful, the fall is not the time to start slacking off.
Caring for your lawn as winter approaches is equally important, and will have your lawn in tip-top shape by the time spring rolls around. Try these fall lawn care tips.
Feed Your Lawn
Fall is the best time to give your lawn a good feeding. As the weather begins to cool, your lawn will slow its top growth while the roots will continue to actively grow. A fall fertilizer application should be applied at the right time, when the plants are still absorbing nutrients. If the ground is frozen or the grass has stopped growing, it is too late. Feeding your lawn in the fall is crucial.
A fall feeding delivers vital nutrients to encourage deep root growth and will help your lawn to store essential nutrients over the long cold Canadian winter. The storing process will continue as long as the plant is green. At the first sign of spring, your lawn will quickly tap into the stored nutrients, increasing the chances of you having a healthy green lawn.
Plant Some Seed
Early fall is a good time to seed a lawn that appears to be in need of some repair. Over-seeding an established lawn fills in bare spots and thickens your grass. Over-seeding immediately following aeration is highly recommended because the holes left behind by the aerator provide thousands of entry points for new grass to germinate and fill in trouble spots.
If your lawn has low spots where water collects, then you may want to take the time to level the ground and re-seed. Make sure to rake to loosen soil, add lawn soil, then evenly distribute seed.
The best time to seed your lawn is in the early fall when the evening temperatures are lower and the morning dew is heavier, sometime between mid-August to late-September. New grass that can establish itself in the fall will come back more vigorous in the spring.