28 May WINTER IS COMING: SHOW YOUR LAWN SOME LOVE
With winter just around the corner, we can’t begin to tell you how often we are asked about the secret to maintaining a healthy lawn throughout the colder months. The answer is simple, start your preparation in autumn.
- Mow with the flow. If you watch the growth of your grass, you will notice that it will slow down rapidly as winter nears; similarly, slow down your mowing as growth slows. Also, don’t cut along the same lines every time you mow otherwise your lawn will develop a grain that follows your regular cutting pattern, causing it to lean to the side (yes, we’re not making this up!) and form uneven grooves. Our last tip on mowing is, depending on the variety of lawn, be sure to mow no more than one third of the length of the grass blade otherwise you will be cutting the roots and not encouraging a deep and luscious matt to form.
- Keep the surface clear. Particularly as autumn winds down, if you (or your neighbour) have trees that drop their leaves and debris onto your lawn, rake frequently to ensure the leaves don’t “smother” your lawn and leave dead patches – we don’t want to block out any of that cool winter sunlight. Make sure you only rake the surface and don’t lift any of those precious roots out of the ground.
- Wangle out those weeds. Dandelions and other “grass-loving” weeds tend to take over and absorb all the nutrients your grass needs. Make sure you do a thorough weeding often, and even apply herbicide to ensure your grass is getting it’s fill.
- Aerate the soil. While getting down and dirty weeding your lawn, be sure to aerate your lawn by punching small holes into the soil. Whilst you can get fancy tools that will make this task a lot easier (especially if you have large sections of lawn), it can also be done with a garden fork. Pay special attention to high traffic areas as the soil is often more compacted in these areas, preventing the grass taking in essential nutrients.
- Organically happy grass. Give your grass a healthy feed organic compost, like our chicken litter-based compost that is acts as a natural fertilizer slowly releasing into the soil.
Now that you have given your lawn some much needed “TLC”, you can rest assured that it will survive the first frost of winter and maintain itself throughout.
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