Leopard print frost
After the first frost of the season, you may notice that your lawn seems to have a leopard print like pattern. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you.
Parts of the lawn will have turned brown overnight from the frost, some parts won’t. This “frost leopard print” effect may cause a little panic!
More about frost
Frost forms when:
- The temperature of the grass surface cools to a temperature that is below freezing.
- The temperature of the grass is colder than the dewpoint of the air.
- The thickest coating of frost typically occurs when temperatures are closer to 32 degrees, because colder air cannot hold as much moisture.
Your lawn is not dead, it is dormant.
Once we have cooler weather in the fall and eventually have a frost, our lawns go into a state of being dormant. When the brown appears in patches with frost leopard print, some may think their lawn has a disease.
Define dormancy
Remember that dormancy just means that your lawn is resting for the winter. It is saving all of the nutrients and energy it needs for the upcoming spring.
As a result, the grass will turn brown. Your grass will continue to hibernate until temperatures reach a consistent low in the 60’s.
Protect the fragile
Our warm season grasses here in the South are not in danger of frost. However, there are precautions that you can take to ensure a healthy lawn in the spring.
Following a heavy frost, stay off your lawn until the frost dissipates. Until then, the blades of grass can be brittle and frozen.
Stay off of the grass! Walking or driving equipment across frozen blades of grass can break them.
Tender plants need to be protected from the frost, especially summer blooming plants that you may be attempting to keep through the winter.
Allow your grass to grow a little bit taller as the temperatures drop. The extra leaf blades can have an insulating effect for your grass and its’ root system.
The need for aeration
Now is the perfect time for aeration. Aeration is one key element of our Lawn 360 program at Lawn and Pest Solutions.
As the weather gets colder, your soil will naturally harden and become compacted. Compacted soil chokes your lawn’s root system, making it difficult to draw nutrients from the soil.
High foot traffic, new sod, and standing water are just a few problems that can lead to compacted soil.
Lawn 360, a year round program
When you take a peek to “check out the damage” of our first frost this year, you can take a deep breath and know that your leopard print lawn isn’t dying.
At Lawn and Pest Solutions, we don’t think about your lawn one season at a time. Our certified lawn technicians want you to get the most out of your lawn.
In addition to aeration for the winter, our techs can give you other pointers to get your yard through every extreme season of our wild and crazy South!
Contact us today to learn more about the Lawn 360 program at Lawn and Pest Solutions. We serve the North Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee areas.
