In winter why should you care about your lawn? It’s cold outside, nothing’s growing and your lawn looks after itself, right? Not quite! With the harsh and cold winter months upon us, your lawn is not growing actively but is still susceptible to damage, needing some love and attention too.
Follow these simple steps to best care for your lawn in winter:
Get rid of the leaves on your lawn.
If you still have leaves covering all or part of your lawn, now’s the time to remove them. Failing to do so, will encourage moss growth and lawn diseases (such as snow mould or fusarium patch that thrive in the damp conditions). Anything blocking the already reduced sunlight will eventually kill off the grass underneath, leading to patchy areas in Spring. Worm cast activity will be higher this time of year too. Raking up leaves removes a food source and helps reduce further casting.
Stay off the lawn when it’s frosty or frozen.
Walking on the grass in that state will cause long term damage, possibly needing renovation in Spring. Once the frost has gone you may find a darker mark on the grass that will take a while to go away. Once the frost/ice has gone, you are good to walk on the lawn again!
Stay off the lawn when it’s wet and muddy.
If it’s a wet winter, keep off the lawn as much as possible. If your foot sinks into the lawn or its very soft underfoot, best to stay off. Walking on it will compact the soil, create an uneven surface with your foot prints and damage the grass plant too. Soil compaction will stop air and nutrients reaching the grass roots so it won’t grow as well in the spring. Dents in the lawn will make it hard to mow correctly, damaging the grass, when you start doing that again in the spring.
Snow Joke!
If you get snow fall covering your lawn, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. In the short term, snow can act as an insulation layer to help you lawn from the cold winter weather. However, be mindful of piling up too much snow on your lawn when clearing paths or driveways, even leaving a snowman in place too long! That will all cause long term damage to the grass.
Give your lawn a winter perk up.
During winter, your lawn will be mostly dormant and it will not need any fertilisers to aid growth. It will benefit from a good dose of liquid iron treatment which will provide some lovely green up of the grass and also help to kill off moss in the lawn. This is a vital treatment to see your lawn through winter and prepare it for spring growth. The dead moss can be removed easily via raking or scarification, backed by top dressing and over seeding in the Spring. It the soil is not too wet or waterlogged, Winter can be a good time to aerate the lawn too.
Lawn Tiger provide a year round lawn care service in Surrey and Sussex and have an effective, affordable Winter lawn care treatment now available. We can help your lawn no matter the time of year. Please contact us for more information on our services and our free lawn care survey.
