4 Tips for Getting Your Lawn Ready for Winter

4 Tips for Getting Your Lawn Ready for Winter

As much as I have lobbied against it, and started multiple online petitions, it seems like winter is finally sneaking up on us. While the world around us starts to bundle up and coffee stands started selling pumpkin spiced lattes, we can’t forget about our lawns. We put time and money into our lawns all spring and summer long, winter is not the time to leave your lawn to fend for itself. Here are a couple tips to make sure that when spring shows up your lawn is ready.

Feed Your Lawn: Your lawn goes through a lot during the summer. For every afternoon spent using the slip-n-slide in the back yard, your lawn loses some of the nutrients it needs to be healthy. With winter coming plants need to replace those nutrients, and in a way “fatten” up for the months ahead. Giving your lawn what it needs through fertilization can be a key step to ensure your lawn is ready to survive the cold winter months to come.

Let Your Lawn: Similar to the need to feed your lawn before winter arrives, it’s almost as important to let your lawn breath. Over the summer months of BBQ’s and epic volleyball tournaments, your lawn's soil is compacted over and over again. The soil can get so compacted it becomes very difficult for moisture and other nutrients to get through the soil to the roots where it is needed. Lawn care professionals recommended aerating your lawn at least once a year. During this process little “plugs” are taken out of the soil allowing oxygen and water to get through the loosened soil. Aerating your lawn also is the perfect opportunity to over seed you lawn to fill in those areas that aren't growing as thick as you would like. A thick and healthy lawn is the best deterrent to weeds in the spring.

Rake up Your Leaves: I have a love hate relationship with leaves. I hate raking leave in my lawn, but at the same time one most enjoyable aspects of fall is watching kids (OK and myself) jumping and having a great time in the piles. However, it’s not just a great idea to rake up the leaves for the amusement, it actually can be a very important step to keep your lawn healthy. When large leaves build up, and get wet from winter moisture, they can compact and actually suffocate your lawn.

Winterize Your Sprinklers: I don’t think that anyone can doubt the importance of having a working sprinkler system for your lawn. Home owners spend large amounts of time and money to make sure that their systems are working at an optimized level. Part of this process is to make sure that the system is winterized to protect against winter freezes. It’s important for lawn owners to have their sprinklers blown out by a professional and insured company that will stand behind their work in the spring. Nothing is worse than turning on the system in the spring and finding out that that your lines have broken during the winter, because they weren't blown out correctly. It might seem like a small thing, but making sure your sprinklers are winterized properly can make a big difference in the health of your lawn come spring. 

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