As winter nears, many of you might not pay too much attention to your lawn. If your lawn has been mowed and watered for the rest of the year, you might want to skip lawn care during the fall. Nevertheless, it’s not a good idea to not care for your lawn in the fall. Mistakes in fall lawn care can cause significant damage between fall and spring.
The following are some fall lawn care mistakes you should avoid to keep your lawn lush and healthy:
1. Leaving Debris over your Lawn
While it may be tempting to mulch the twigs and leaves and forget about it, it’s not a good practice. If you don’t gather all the debris on your lawn before winter, this debris, the grass clippings, and the leaf litter can invite mice, voles, and pests. These rodents simply love messy lawns during the winter.
Moreover, grass requires sunlight for healthy growth. If the mess is left on the lawn, the grass may weaken, draw weeds, and even die.
So, collect all the debris. Then, mow the lawn slightly shorter than usual for the winter months.
2. Skipping Fall Fertilizer Application
Applying fall fertilizer is the year’s most important feeding. So, avoid skipping it. Fall fertilization is done around Halloween and involves feeding the roots of your lawn. This feeding strengthens your grass and makes them healthy from beneath the surface of the soil.
Applying a slow-release fertilizer would result in a stronger, healthier, and greener lawn in the spring. While choosing a fertilizer for this feeding, ensure that you choose one that’s designed especially for autumn.
3. Messy Planting Beds
If the planting beds are ignored, all the debris and leaves will lead to a mess by spring. They will become wet and soggy, settle on the ground and stick, and start rotting. In case it’s mild winter, they may blow out of the planting beds onto the clean lawn, making your fall lawn cleaning efforts go in vain.
4. Neglecting Sprinkler Winterization
This is another common fall lawn care mistake. As there is nothing like a self-draining system, it’s important to always blow out the sprinkler system. In case all the water is not brought out of the sprinkler heads, valves, and pipes, the water may freeze and expand. This may lead to the breaking of the pipes, bringing costly repairs for you.
5. Skipping Aeration in Fall
Fall is an optimal time for lawn aeration.
Running a heavy machine on your lawn that disrupts the soil gives way to the risk of weakened turf and crabgrass germination. In spring, a crabgrass pre-emergent is applied to most lawns. This application builds a “barrier” for preventing the germination of crabgrass seeds. When a heavy machine is run over the lawn that creates holes in the soil, the “barrier” is not set up properly, thereby inviting crabgrass development.
If you want to carry out any lawn care activity that disrupts the soil, fall is the ideal time for doing it. This is because the lawn will get the entire fall and the entire spring growing season for recovery. Doing such will also fetch a higher success rate when it comes to applying the pre-emergent for crabgrass prevention.
6. Leaving your Sprinklers on Until Too Late
It’s a mistake to water the lawn until the very last moment before the onset of winter. While lawns need water during the fall so as to enter winter well hydrated, their water requirement in fall – when the weather is cool – is less than that in the hot summer.
So, consider shutting down your sprinkler system to avoid the freezing and damage of components.
Hire All American Turf Beauty for Expert Fall Lawn Care
If fall lawn treatment is a concern for you, we’ll be happy to help you! All American Turf Beauty has expert fall lawn care professionals who know how to care for lawns during fall to facilitate a healthy and green lawn during winter and spring. Rely on us for lawn care maintenance and grass treatment in the fall to get the best results. Give us a call today at 515-996-2261 to avail our fall and winter lawn care services. You can take advantage of our fall lawn care offers too!