The Best Fall Lawn Care Schedule for a Thriving Lawn
Seasonal lawn care is essential for the beauty and health of your yard. Let’s do a quick walk-through of a fall lawn care schedule that will get you the best results.
Lawns require quite a bit of attention in the fall. The weather is starting to cool and you’re just starting to think about putting away the mower and shutting down the sprinklers, but there are a few more tasks to take care of before you can lay it all to rest. And if you follow the right fall lawn care schedule, you’ll be setting your lawn up for glory come springtime. So let’s just buckle up and finish this season in style with a cleanup done the right way.
In this blog post, we’ll share our secrets to a thorough and effective seasonal cleanup and some tips you can put into action to make sure you’re giving your lawn the care it deserves.
Do you need a break from all the care you have to give your lawn? No worries, we’ve got your back. Contact Mahoney Associates today and we’ll take it from there. Call us at (631)287-7666 or email us to talk.
Key information about fall lawn care
Why is it important?
Following an expertly planned fall lawn care schedule is important because it will determine how well your lawn will survive the winter—Is it going to have a hard time or is it going to be stronger than ever?
Cool-season grasses thrive in the cold of the night and the warmth of the day. Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, and tall and fine fescues are some of the grasses that are happiest during the coming months—if treated well.
But here’s the thing: If you have warm-season grasses, you have to treat them differently from the cold-season ones. Tricky, right?
So, before you do anything, the first step is to find out what kind of grass you have in order to know what will be the next steps.
Tips & tricks for successful fall lawn care
First of all, plan out the actual schedule.
In September, take care of the:
- Bare spots,
- Thin patches of grass,
- Dead areas in your lawn.
Warm-season grasses need this while the temperatures are still high, while cool-season grasses will need you to wait for the cold.
Loosen the soil, remove excess thatch as well as dead grass and leaves.
In October, it’s time to:
- Aerate compacted soil,
- Overseed the lawn.
Aerating the soil will allow water, air, and nutrients to infiltrate the soil and keep it healthy.
After that, you can have fun sprinkling seeds all over your yard and then give them plenty of water to take root.
No fertilizer needed at this point, just keep on edging and trimming when necessary.
In late fall (mid-November), you finally:
At this point, you want your yard as clean as possible from leaves and other debris that can damage the grass. Mulch small quantities of leaves to enable nutrients to get into the soil, and completely get rid of large quantities of leaves.
If you’re tempted to use fertilizer, we advise against it. Your lawn is going to have a little bit of a hard time during the winter anyway, so applying chemical products (unless they’re super good for the lawn AND the environment) isn’t the right way to go.
Fall season is a beautiful time of the year, but it’s also one when our lawn needs us the most. If you follow this fall lawn care schedule, your lawn will show you the results in the spring – and yes, they will be worth it.
Want to make sure that, come spring, your lawn will be as beautiful as ever? We’ll take care of that for you. Call us at (631)287-7666 or email us to talk.
Photo by Jonas Weckschmied on Unsplash