Fall is here and there are 6 tips to having a beautiful lawn in the spring and a good looking lawn all winter. Many people forget this time of year because it is not the most pleasant to work in, but care now will pay off when developing a healthy beautiful lawn.
1) Keep cutting your lawn until it stops growing, usually mid to late November. How many lawns do you see that look like they need a haircut, they are everywhere. The fact is that once temperatures are below 4 deg celcius your lawn will start going in to dormancy. Once the lawn is dormant it will remain looking good the whole winter. Having it look good is not the only benefit. A properly cut lawn can handle the winter snow that we get better than a lawn that is long. Long grass tends to get pushed over when it snows. The pushed over grass blades then get stuck in the melt zone of the snow. As a reuslt the grass tends to keep laying down after the snow has gone and this can result in the blade and grass dying in those areas.
2) Keep leaf debris and pine needle debris of the lawns on a weekly basis until all the leafs have fallen(remove pine needles and limbs after winter storms). This is a really important part, when light levels are low and moisture levels are high. Grass needs ight to conver nitrogen into food. Lower light levels in the fall already effect how a plant is uptaking food. leafs left on a lawn block light and if left on too long can result in a yellowed weekened turf.. Needles from coniferous trees are acidic and allowing these to build up will change the ph of your turfs soil over the winter. Removing these is essential for a healthy thick lawn.
3) Aerate your lawn to reduce winter puddling and prevent rotting of the turf. Getting water off the surface and below into the root zone is crucial. With 20 to 30 days of continuous rain common in Vancouver winter months, puddling can be an issue, this can be reduced by reducing the compaction of the lawn.
4) Apply Winterizer fertilizer that is low in nitrogen and high in potassium, to help the grass plant store food, thicken its cell walls and harden off. your lawn should remain green all winter a yellow lawn is a sign of a lack of nutrients.
5) Apply a moss spray application if any moss is present in the lawn. When the grass stops growing the best conditions for moss exist. Stop the advance of the moss by spraying now this will mean lower if no moss in the spring.
6) Apply lime to counter acidic winter rains. Our rain water tends to be acidic., as a result lime is an important part of maintaining the ph of the soil in a range that the grass will thrive in.
