7 Impactful Ways to Prepare Your Lawn for the Fall

Your lawn needs care and maintenance. And, the winter time is when you need to take the most care. Contrary to many who believe that the wintertime requires no lawn maintenance, it is the period when your lawn needs the most care.

With the winter season being around the corner, you should get ready to take extra care of your lawn to keep it the best one in your locality.

Here are the best methods of preparing your lawn for the winter season:

#1. Prune Plants

Some plants must have been overgrown by the end of the summer. So, you should remove the spent flower heads, also called deadheading, to enhance the looks of your garden.

Moreover, pruning can help the plants bloom more flowers next year.

#2. Water the Lawn

Water is essential for your lawn, even during the winter season. Despite the leaf changes in the season, and the grass does not grow fast, water is still necessary.

When you water your lawn, it can stimulate the recovery from the summer stress to freshen up during the winter ahead.

Again, you might consider apply fertilizers to your lawn during the winter season. If so, watering is necessary, it will help the fertilizer to dissolve and soak into the land.

Therefore, you should resist your temptation, if any, to put away the hoses or sprinkles because the grass needs water.

#3. Fertilize Your Lawn

If you want to maintain good health for your lawn, you need to put fertilizer. And, studies show that it is a good practice to fertilize a lawn four times a year.

But, if you want to fertilize your lawn only once during the year, the winter season is the best to do so.

You should ensure that the fertilizer you use is the right one in terms of the constituents of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

If you are not accustomed to the nitty-gritty aspects of fertilize assessment, you can seek advice of an expert, who will guide you through the fertilizer selection process.

As a good practice, you should put fertilizer on your lawn around three weeks before the last mowing of the season.

Fertilizer will provide all the essential nutrients apart from providing the required energy to the grass.

So, the grass can multiply in the winter season. And, the grass can store food to stimulate growth.

#4. Remove Water from Garden Hoses

You should get into gardening tasks with the winter about to set in. It can so happen that you might consider putting your garden hoses off for the winter season without draining them.

In such a case, the hoses can split open due to freezing water. Consequently, you will have to replace the hoses, spending money.

But you can easily avoid such occurrences by blasting out the water with an air compressor before the winter season sets in.

#5. Remove Moisture from the Riding Mower

When moisture inside your riding mower remains after you put it off for the winter, it can develop corrosion.

But you can prevent that by a technique called—Fogging—which involves spraying an oily mist into the cylinders of a riding mower.

The process is a simple one. You should remove the spark plugs and spray aerosol fogging spray. After that, you should reinstall the spark plugs. And, that is the finishing point.

Again, you should take care of the battery, which can get damaged if you store it without fully charging it.

Therefore, you should charge the battery until the reading shows 12.7 volts.

#6. Cut the Grass Short

You should cut the grass short. But first, you should remove the dead leaves as that can kill the grass below when snow accumulates on them.

Before the winter sets in, you should cut the grasses to around 2 inches. As a result, there will be lesser chances of snow mould forming, and the grass will have a smooth look.

#7. Save the Tender Bulbs

It is a good idea to not allow the tender bulbs, such as calla lilies, caladiums and gladiolus, to die during the winter season. Instead, you should plant the tender bulbs in containers and store them in a basement or garage.

Also, you should water the containers sparingly to disallow the soil to dry out completely.

Conclusion

With winter approaching, you should do the essential tasks to prepare your lawn to remain in a good condition during the winter days. It will not only help the lawn look good but also prevent equipment damage.