The best way to ensure a thick and luscious summer lawn is to give it some well-timed care throughout the year. Although it is hard to believe, summer is on it’s way out and fall is just around the corner. If you are wondering what you can do this fall to ensure that you keep your lawn looking nice and healthy and ready to blossom into a healthy green lawn in the spring, read on.

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Step 1: Remove The Leaves

We know, raking leaves is no one’s idea of fun, but it’s an important thing to do. As much as you may like the colorful carpet of leaves in the fall, they’re not good for your grass. This is especially true when you let the leaves build up and become clumped together by rain and morning dew, transforming them into an impenetrable mat that will suffocate your grass and foster fungal diseases. For this reason, it is important to rake leaves as they fall, not once all the leaves have fallen and the trees are bare.

Step 2: Cut Grass To The Right Height

Although summer may have passed, this doesn’t mean you can put the mower away quite yet. Continue mowing the grass up until the first hard frost. When mowing, don’t cut too short or let it get too long. However, on one of the last mows of the season, you can drop the blade down to a lower setting. Doing this will help the sunlight reach the crown of the grass, making your lawn slightly less brown this winter.

Step 3: Continue Watering

In the fall you should continue to water your lawn. While it’s true that as the seasons turn, your grass will often get more rain, more dew, and less evaporation, this does not necessarily mean that the grassroots will get the water they need to stay hydrated and healthy. Ideally, you want to shoot for giving your lawn at least an inch of water a week. This could probably stop around October, at which point you will want to disconnect hoses and flush the irrigation system to avoid damaging your system with frozen pipes and spigots.

Step 4: Aerate Your Soil

Fall is also a great time aerate your lawn. This allows oxygen, water, and fertilizer to more easily reach the roots. If this is not a lawn care service that you can provide, or you don’t feel like buying or renting the equipment, be sure to contact your local lawn care company.

Step 5: Fertilize Your Lawn

Lawn fertilization is a crucial part of fall lawn care. Just as your grass’ roots need water to survive through the winter, they also could benefit from a dash of plant vitamins. This will help protect the roots and give them the energy to bounce back quickly when spring emerges. It is best to apply a fall-specific lawn fertilizer — be sure to avoid spreading fertilizer too close to waterways, which can cause contamination from runoff.

Step 6: Spread Seed

Regardless of whether you have lots of bald spots and bare patches, throwing down some seed in the fall can be a great way to protect your lawn. For one, this will fill in those thin spots, and secondly, it will introduce a resilient, drought-tolerant grass to your lawn. What makes fall a great time for this is that the soil is still warm, there is still plenty of moisture, and the sun is not scorchingly hot. Rather than simply broadcasting seeds over your lawn, the best approach is to use a slit seeder or power seeder.

Lawn care infographic.

Need help performing your lawn care services this fall? If you are in Cuyahoga, Medina, Lorain, Franklin, Delaware, Fairfield, Union, or anywhere else in our service area, give us a call at (888) 421-0601.