Lawns may prove pretty difficult to care and maintain under different climatic conditions. During winter, some parts of the country experience retarded growth of lawn grass. In the south for instance, during the cold season, over-seeding of the ryegrass into the turf is done in order to maintain a green lawn. The cold in the north gets too much for grass growth until springtime. However, lawn care does not end in the winter.
Below are helpful suggestions to ensure your lawn is healthy irrespective of the season.
Fertilize your lawn with a spreader.
Be careful as to how you apply fertilizer on your lawn. A large quantity applied can burn your grass. While operating the machine on the lawn, hold on the handle like a trigger. Doing this releases pellets as you “shoot.” Most importantly, read carefully and be guided by the instructions provided on the fertilizer pack.
The lawn should be aerated.
Providing artificial air on your lawn can go a long way in helping the grasses on your lawn grow better. Grassroots require extra air. With a spade, you can take out unwanted soils around your lawn. Doing this helps to create more holes for the planting of seeds. A large lawn requires an aerator either one operated manually or mechanically.
Spread cool-weather grass seed.
There are some grass seeds that has on their package “cool season” or “cool weather”, e.g. fescues. Such grass seeds should spread over the lawn. The seed can be sprinkled with a fertilizer spreader. Also, the seeds should be spread evenly so it won’t cause grasses clustering as time goes by.
The lawn should be raked and watered.
Regularly keep your lawn raked. This would help get rid of soil clumps. And it would spread those soils over the seeds as a covering. After raking your lawn. You would have to water it. A garden hose spray is recommended for use in watering your lawn. Always keep the soil moist. Avoid getting your lawn all dried out during winter.
More tricks to keep your lawn clean in winter.
Avoid having objects fall off leaves and debris on the lawn. It is important to keep your lawn completely clean and free of unwanted objects. Unwanted objects can deaden the lawn grasses, attract insects, rodents, harmful pests and facilitate disease conditions. During your last mowing exercises on the lawn for winter, you would have to reduce the height of the mower either by a notch or two. Unusual long grasses deaden themselves, cause disease and are at the risk of being damaged by conditions such as thawing and freezing. However, avoid cutting the grass so short. This can make the plant’s crown open to unfavourable conditions.
Taking control measures, it is important to monitor climatic conditions. Although turf can prove to be very resilient allowing extreme winter, there are peculiar weather conditions that can cause long-term damage. It can serve very good purposes to have a little-exposed ice kept in a low spot upon the prediction of a winter storm or a deep freeze. Finally, as a hard and fast rule, keep close monitoring of the weather.