How do you prepare your lawn for winter?

Each sea­son requires us to look after the gar­den dif­fer­ent­ly. With the arrival of cool­er weath­er, it’s time to think about, how to pre­pare a lawn for win­ter. Grass, like oth­er plants in your gar­den, needs spe­cial care to sur­vive the cold months and to flour­ish suc­cess­ful­ly in spring. It should not be for­got­ten that the lawn is exposed to a num­ber of fac­tors in win­ter that can weak­en or even destroy it. There­fore, prop­er prepa­ra­tion becomes key to main­tain­ing its health and beau­ty. In this post, we will sug­gest what to look out for and how to take care of your green turf step by step before the onset of win­ter.

When to start preparing your lawn for winter? 

Prepar­ing the lawn for win­ter is a process that is worth think­ing about as ear­ly as late sum­mer. Tak­ing prop­er care of your lawn dur­ing this peri­od ensures that it will be able to with­stand the low tem­per­a­tures and oth­er harsh con­di­tions that win­ter brings.

Before the first frosts arrive, gar­den­ing experts rec­om­mend cut­ting the grass with a slight­ly low­er set­ting than usu­al. Why is this impor­tant? When the grass is too long, it can accu­mu­late mois­ture under the lay­er of snow, which pro­motes rot­ting. Rot­ten parts of the lawn pro­vide an ide­al envi­ron­ment for var­i­ous pathogens to grow, which can lead to grass dis­eases. Cut­ting the lawn to a low­er height allows it to sur­vive the win­ter months bet­ter. In addi­tion, short­er grass is less like­ly to be crushed by snow. If it is crushed under the weight of the snow for an extend­ed peri­od of time, it can turn yel­low or even die in cer­tain areas.

How do you prepare your lawn for winter? Start by fertilising

Autumn is the time when nature pre­pares for its win­ter dor­man­cy, and you have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take steps to ensure your piece of green­ery gets off to a healthy start in the com­ing year. In par­tic­u­lar prepar­ing the lawn for win­ter is extreme­ly impor­tant, and one of the key ele­ments in this process is its appro­pri­ate fer­til­i­sa­tion.

Why is autumn fer­til­i­sa­tion such an impor­tant activ­i­ty? The answer lies in the spe­cif­ic needs of the plants dur­ing this peri­od. Spe­cial crop sup­port mea­sures for autumn are for­mu­lat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly from those used at oth­er times of the year. They con­tain less nitro­gen, the ingre­di­ent main­ly respon­si­ble for the rapid growth and green colour of the lawn. Instead, they focus on pro­vid­ing more potas­si­um and phos­pho­rus. These two ingre­di­ents are cru­cial for strength­en­ing the roots of the grass, which is essen­tial for the grass to suc­cess­ful­ly sur­vive the harsh win­ter con­di­tions.

Preparing your lawn for winter — what else needs to be done?

Scar­i­fy­ing and aer­at­ing focus on cut­ting the sur­face of the lawn, but in a slight­ly dif­fer­ent way. Scar­i­fy­ing involves remov­ing a lay­er of felt (dead grass, plant debris) from the sur­face of the lawn, which in turn helps to improve the pen­e­tra­tion of water and nutri­ents into the soil. Aer­a­tion, on the oth­er hand, involves cre­at­ing small holes in the soil, which improves air and water per­me­abil­i­ty to the roots of the lawn. 

Autumn is the ide­al time to tack­le stub­born peren­ni­al weeds. Dur­ing this peri­od, many weeds build up nutri­ents in their roots in prepa­ra­tion for win­ter. Get­ting rid of weeds in autumn pre­vents them from spread­ing the fol­low­ing year, which is key to main­tain­ing the aes­thet­ics and health of your lawn.

Edg­ing Lawn sods not only have an aes­thet­ic func­tion, but also pro­tect your lawn from dam­age. Before win­ter, make sure they are well fixed and do not allow leaves and oth­er debris to get under the lawn. In addi­tion to main­tain­ing your edg­ing, take care to clean your lawn. Make sure that all leaves, branch­es etc. have been removed from it. Leav­ing them over the win­ter can lead to lawn rot and dis­ease devel­op­ment.

When you think about it, how to pre­pare a lawn before win­ter, it’s worth remem­ber­ing that your actions are not only aimed at get­ting your lawn through this time of year, but also at ensur­ing that it is healthy and ready to flour­ish in the spring. Tak­ing reg­u­lar care of your lawn in autumn is an invest­ment that pays div­i­dends through­out the fol­low­ing year.