If you live in a colder climate, as a homeowner there are two distinct seasons for your lawn, enjoying it in the summer and preparing to enjoy it in the summer. Winter lawn care is vital to this equation. Preparing your lawn for winter and maintaining it during the colder months helps ensure that it remains healthy, resists cold weather damage, and is ready to thrive in the spring. So, how do you ensure your lawn survives in cold weather?
Let’s take a look at why preparing your lawn for winter is important and tips for caring for your lawn in colder months.
Winterizing the lawn may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about lawn maintenance, but that does not mean it isn’t important. Lawn care is a year-round endeavor and lawn care in winter is as important as caring for your lawn during warmer months.
Unless you live in a particularly mild climate, your lawn grass will go dormant in the winter. Nonetheless, maintaining a green lawn requires not only waiting out the winter months, but employing a few winter lawn care tips to ensure it thrives. Much of this winter lawn care involves preparing your lawn to go dormant in the winter and giving it the best chance to not only survive cold weather but thrive once the weather becomes warmer. There are also several things you can do during the winter that can prevent lawn damage and boost grass survival.
When grass goes dormant in the winter, especially if it is beneath a cover of snow, its growth is slowed down to conserve energy for new growth. The top layer of grass stems do die off during this period, but the grass roots and underground stems, or rhizomes, survive while dormant, ready to shoot up through the soil as new growth in the spring.
The cold weather can put stress on your lawn and cause damage, especially in parts of the country that experience harsh winters. Winter lawn care and preparation is about ensuring that these dormant roots and rhizomes are best prepared to survive through the winter, no matter how cold or snowy it might get. So, what are these tips for keeping your grass healthy during cold weather?
Cold weather lawn care comes down to performing a few important maintenance tasks to ensure your lawn emerges from winter unharmed and healthy. Winter lawn care happens in two-phases: pre-winter care or preparation and winter maintenance.
Until the freeze sets in, it is essential to continue to care for your lawn with regular maintenance tasks much as you would during warmer months. As the weather turns cooler, other maintenance tasks become important to winterize your lawn. Let’s take a look at how to winterize the lawn in preparation for the cold winter months.
Cleaning up the yard along with continuing lawn care before the freeze sets in is a key part to preparing your lawn for winter. This of course means continuing to mow your grass, but once the leaves start to fall, it also means making sure your lawn remains leaf free. This then, of course, means raking.
Keeping your lawn free of leaves helps keep your grass healthy for several reasons. Leaves covering your lawn creates a barrier that makes it harder for your grass to get what it needs, mainly sunlight, oxygen, and essential nutrients. When leaves get wet, they can also cause mold and fungus to grow, which can affect the growth of your grass. For these reasons, it is vital to rake or mow fallen leaves throughout the autumn months. If you do mulch your leaves with a mower though, also make sure they are dry before you do.
One important pre-winter yard treatment to perform before winter sets in is to add fertilizer in late fall to provide your grass with a nutrient boost that can help strengthen your grass’s roots before the winter sets in. Adding fertilizer is a winter lawn treatment that can provide support for your grass to survive cold weather.
Most lawns can benefit from aeration. If your lawn experiences heavy foot traffic or has a noticeably thick thatch though, lawn aeration is an essential maintenance task to help your grass grow better and healthier.
Thatch is a layer of organic plant material, such as undigested roots or leaves, that settles between your grass and the soil that provides its nutrients. When it gets especially thick, it can deprive your lawn of these nutrients as well as the water, oxygen, and sunlight it needs to thrive. Aerating your lawn allows these vital growth components to reach into the grass’s root system, promoting a lush and healthy lawn.
With colder climate lawns, it is best to aerate after the weather becomes cooler but before the first freeze. This can be anywhere in early to late autumn, before any cold or snow sets in.
Make sure your lawn is well-watered a day or two before you aerate. There are two methods of aeration: the plug or core method and the spike method. A plug aerator removes plugs of soil across your lawn, while a spike aerator rolls over your lawn and creates puncture holes throughout it. With either method, the purpose is to provide extra air for grass roots. If you have a large lawn, a motorized aerator can also be used to speed up the process.
Once winter sets in, there are several winter lawn care tips that can help your lawn grass survive cold and snowy weather conditions.
One important part of winter lawn care is minimizing the amount of traffic your lawn gets, including both people, animals, and machinery. The soil beneath your lawn is fairly dry during the winter and also more compacted. Under these conditions, wearing a path across your lawn with heavy traffic day after day can cause significant damage. Try to clear a pathway that avoids heavy traffic across your lawn or use a garden fence to encourage traffic where it is safer for your lawn.
Another important winter lawn care tip is to prevent salt from accumulating on your lawn. Salt is often used to control winter ice buildup on roads, driveways, and walkways, but it can also damage or kill your lawn grass. Take steps to prevent salt accumulation on your lawn by installing burlap or plastic edging to protect salt from spreading onto your lawn from your driveway or walkways. Make sure you also only use salt when necessary and be careful when spreading it near your lawn. As an alternative, you could use sand or cat litter to minimize ice buildup.
If you live in an area that gets a lot of snow, one part of your January lawn care routine is to make sure snow does not accumulate on your lawn in one large snow mound. Keep in mind that large piles of snow are heavy. If they accumulate in one area, they can damage or kill the grass underneath. This can create dead spots, something you most likely want to avoid. Throughout the snowy season, spread accumulated snow across your lawn so the snow will melt more evenly and no one spot will be left with snow for too long.
Enjoying your lawn when the weather turns warm means keeping it healthy throughout the year. This includes winter lawn care. By following simple winterization and maintenance tips your lawn grass can remain healthy and survive the colder weather, resist any damage, and thrive in the spring.
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