Top Tips for Winter Lawn Care
Written by Nick Thomas, founder of Cutting Edge Lawn & Landscape
Wichita winters can be brutal. When the frost forms and the snow falls, we might think that our lawns begin a sort of magical process, where, for the next six months, they take care of themselves.
Wrong!
In fact, caring for your lawn in winter is one of the best things you can do if you're looking to have a healthy sea of green come spring. Tobie Andrews Real Estate Media reached out to us, here at Cutting Edge Lawn and Landscape, and asked us to share our best tips for keeping our lawns healthy and happy throughout the winter months.
Aerate your Lawn
The process of punching holes in your lawn is called aeration. Most hardware stores sell tools and equipment designed to make the aeration process a breeze.
Aerating your lawn will go a long way toward your lawn's health, because it avoids soil compaction, where all the soil bunches together and freezes. Think of how the blood flow stops in your hands when you make a fist. Aerating your lawn helps make sure that oxygen and vital nutrients can travel through the soil, even as the weather causes it to compact.
The best time to aerate your lawn is going to be BEFORE the first big freeze, that's why it's number one on our list. You've still got time people!
Fertilize
So, you've gone out and aerated your lawn. That was some fast work, good for you. The next step is going to be fertilization. Yes, you read that right.
Squirrels spend the fall storing food for winter. Why? Because in winter, food is harder to find. The same is true for your lawn. It is important to remember your lawn is a living, breathing thing. It is an ecosystem. And when an ecosystem suffers drought, the citizens suffer.
Dumping plenty of food onto a freshly aerated lawn will give your lawn a very good head start as it enters the most time of year it will face.
Rake and Bag
When material is pressed into your lawn all winter by pounds and pounds of heavy snow, your grass is going to suffer. Those patches of grass suffocated by debris will almost surely go brown over the winter, and will have difficulty recovering in the spring.
Clearing your leaves is a way to ensure your grass doesn't have to contend with anything other than snow and cold as it lies dormant over the winter, and in fact, this step should be completed before aerating.
We only put it this far down the list because you've already done it. Right? Haven't you? *Narrows eyes suspiciously...
Keep Off the Grass
Cold grass is brittle grass, and brittle grass is fragile. As your lawn spends the winter doing everything it can to stay alive (greatly advantaged by the fact you've already aerated and fertilized), don't make things harder for it by walking all over it.
During winter, you should take care to remember that your grass is feeling stressed out. Adding further stress by trouncing all over it may cause damage your lawn will have difficulty repairing.
Don't Wait
The worst thing you can do for your lawn is wait. Letting it grow feral just before a big freeze is NOT the way to ensure the grass is greener where you live.
Keep your lawn maintained all the way through fall and into those first few cold days of winter. PREVENTING problems before they arise is the easiest, cheapest way of dealing with them.
Winter will be hard on your lawn. It always is. It will be well worth giving your lawn every advantage you can to thrive and flourish.
Contact Lawn Service Professionals
Of course, all of these steps take time and require certain levels of skill to do them properly. If you're too busy this fall to take care of your lawn in Wichita or WHEREVER you call home, don't hesitate to call Cutting Edge Lawn and Landscape.
We've been making lawns winter-ready for 20 years, and trust us, your grass will appreciate it.
About the Author
Nick Thomas, founder of Cutting Edge Lawn & Landscape in Wichita, KS, built a landscaping business based on creativity, a love for design and a mission to provide top-notch customer service. There's nothing he loves more than rolling up his sleeves and solving challenges.
Cutting Edge Lawn & Landscape
3425 N. Broadway
Wichita, KS 67219
(316) 390-1443
