Lawn Maintenance in Fall

Lawn Maintenance in Fall

The harsh conditions of winter can inflict a lot of damage on
your lawn. In order to protect your lawn as much as possible
during the winter months you should be prepared to do some
regular lawn maintenance every fall.

Try to keep your lawn as free as possible from falling leaves.
Although the rotting leaves can add nutrients to the soil, they
also prevent sunshine from reaching the grass, and this can
cause the grass to die off before the winter snows arrive.
Raking leaves every couple of days as they are falling off the
trees has the dual benefit of exposing the grass to as much
sunshine as possible and aerating the soil by the action of the
raking.

The lawn should be fertilized before the cold weather, and
natural fertilizer produced by composting is the best type of
fertilizer you can provide. Compost can be made from kitchen
scraps and garden cuttings, and the leaves that you are raking
from the lawn can also be added.

Try not to cut the lawn too often in the fall -- once every
three or four weeks is sufficient. After each cutting, spread a
thin layer of compost over the soil. The compost will fertilize
the soil as well as providing a layer of mulch to keep the soil
moist.

If your lawn has a problem with weeds, fall is a good time to
treat it. Apply herbicides to weeds as needed or dig them up
manually if there are not too many. Other lawn problems such as
thatch can also be dealt with in the fall.

If your lawn receives a lot of traffic during the summertime the
soil can become compacted which leads to insufficient aeration
in the soil. This situation can be corrected in the fall by a
using a machine called an aerator. They are available at rental
yards or hardware stores.

Finally, make sure your lawn has sufficient moisture throughout
the wintertime. If you live in a climate which has freezing
weather all winter, water the lawn well before the first frost.
Even though the lawn is dormant throughout the wintertime, it is
still alive and