With less than three weeks until Christmas, the last thing on your mind is how to prep your lawn for spring! However, the most effective lawn care is year round. Don’t let all of the hard work of spring and summer go to waste. 

With winter arriving, there are things you should do to prep your lawn for spring. This work will ensure a healthy lawn once spring arrives. 

To do list for spring lawn prep:

Remove heavy limbs from your lawn.

Heavy piles of anything cause compacted lawns, patchiness and dead grass. These piles also make great hiding places for rodents and pests waiting to get into your home.

Remove the last of the leaves.

Don’t just rake the leaves, remove the leaves. Piles of anything are not healthy for any lawn.

Aerate!

Aerate before the ground becomes frozen. Breaking through “thatch” is what allows air, water and nutrients to get down into the roots of your lawn. Whether using plugs or spikes to poke down through thatch, this process increases airflow and helps with drainage.

Water the lawn

Cold air and wind can dehydrate your grass. Give your lawn a deep watering if it needs it, but don’t water when the temperature is below 40 degrees.

Get rid of weeds.

Don’t let weeds take over just because your lawn doesn’t look pretty. Brown lawns aren’t dead, they are dormant. Dormant lawns are asleep. Now is the time to apply pre-emergent weed killer.

Mow the grass, one more time.

As long as the grass is dry, mow it one last time. Make this last cut a little shorter than summer cuts. This helps to keep rodents away, especially voles.

If you have any energy left…

Winter is a great time for mower repair. Clean, repair, replace parts, and sharpen blades.

This spring, you will be glad you prepped your lawn.

Lawn care is a year-round job. Even in the winter, you are prepping for spring. A little bit of work and prep year-round will result in a healthier lawn come spring. 

Our year-round Lawn360 program provides aerating and pre-emergent treatments for your lawn. Contact Lawn and Pest Solutions for licensed lawn technicians who know exactly how to help your lawn. 

Remember the childhood candy, Now and Later ? Minus the dental work issues, this candy is a great synonym for winter to spring lawn care. The year round process of lawn care is truly that, year round. Now that winter is here, there is work you can do to prepare your lawn for the winter ahead and ensure a healthy lawn once spring arrives. Here are seven things you can do to prep your lawn for winter:

1. Remove debris from your lawn

Get those heavy limbs off of your lawn. Piles of sticks and branches cause compacted lawns, patchiness and dead grass. They also create great hiding places for pests that are waiting to get into your home. Now is a good time to get that fire pit up and running!

2.  Rake your lawn

If you haven’t started already, get to work on the fall raking project. If you have started…finish! Rake up the leaves and remove them from your lawn. Anything piled up in your lawn is a hiding place for pests or a great way to kill a healthy (though probably dormant) lawn.

3. Aerate your lawn

If you haven’t already aerated your lawn, winter isn’t an excuse. As long as the ground isn’t frozen, you can aerate. Breaking through “thatch” is what allows air, water and nutrients to get down into the roots of your lawn. Thatch is the thick layer of living material and debris between the top layer of lawn and the soil beneath. About one inch of thatch is normal and healthy for a lawn, anything more is not. Whether using plugs or spikes to poke down through thatch, this process increases airflow and helps with drainage.

4. Water your lawn

Just because it is cold outside doesn’t mean your grass isn’t thirsty. Cold air and wind can dehydrate your grass. Give your lawn a deep watering if it needs it, but don’t water if it is below 40 degrees out.

5.  Weed your lawn

It is really easy to see fresh green weeds in a brown, dormant lawn. Remember dormant lawns aren’t “dead” they are just “asleep”. Don’t let weeds take over just because your lawn doesn’t look pretty. The rainy and mild winter days usually result in a fresh batch of weeds, so watch out for them! This is also a good time to apply pre-emergent weed killer, our guys are pros at when/where/and how much to apply.

And just to review:

Dormant

adjective (of a plant or bud) alive but not actively growing. 

Similar: asleep, sleeping, slumbering, resting, reposing,
drowsing

6. Repair your equipment

Things may be busy now, but once you survive Christmas and put all of that away, drag out your mower and get to work. Now you can clean it up, repair it, replace parts and sharpen the blades. Think about your lawn mower blades like the scissors or blades a hairdresser or barber uses. If using a dull mower to cut your grass, the grass blades will be ripped and torn, this opens your lawn up to all sorts of issues in the spring. While you have the mower out…

7. Mow your yard, one last time

As long as the grass is dry, you can mow it one last time if you haven’t already. You want this last cut to be a little shorter than your summer cuts. This helps to keep rodents away, especially voles. It also helps with other issues and will give your spring lawn a better chance.

Remember “now and later”

To wrap it all up, your lawn is a year round job. There is always something to do. Preparing your lawn for winter in the fall turns to preparing your lawn for the spring in the winter. It never ends. A little bit of work and prep year round will result in a healthier lawn come spring. A lawn that has been cared for over the winter is not as much work in the spring, so that’s the good news! 

Call us if you have any questions or concerns about aerating or applying a pre emergent for your lawn. At Lawn and Pest Solutions we have licensed lawn technicians who know exactly how to help you. This winter is a great time to set up a consultation. We can schedule a program for you that will simplify your year round lawn care routine. We serve the Memphis, TN to North Mississippi areas and would love to assist you with your lawn and pest needs. Contact our office to set up a visit!

What’s the use? Why bother with fall plant care? Boat owners don’t leave their precious investments floating in cold waters all winter. We protect our new cars in garages. We make sure the roof isn’t leaking before the rain comes. Just like boats, cars and homes, our landscapes are an investment.

Oh, I never thought of it that way.

When we walk around our property this coming spring, we can have a healthy and well protected lawn to boast about. Or…we can look back with regret that we didn’t protect our investment over the fall and winter seasons. All of the time and money spent on planting, nurturing, watering and fertilizing shouldn’t be wasted.

A beautiful lawn is a year round job. 

At Lawn and Pest Solutions, we offer a plant health care program that focuses on keeping your landscape and shrubs insect and disease free. Our licensed technicians will visit you four times a year with either a very broad service, or one that is tailored to the specific needs of your lawn.

Pests, irrigation and fertilization

If you have invested a great amount of money in a landscape, you want to protect everything there from pests like crape myrtle bark scale, lace bugs on azalea, scale on hollies, camellias and euonymus. In addition to pest control in your lawn, our techs can give you feedback on irrigation as well as fertilization (another service we offer). 

We can make your life easier.

We can spend a lot of time and money guessing what is wrong with our landscape and even trying to fix it ourselves. Many times, you can spend less money and very little time by leaving it up to a professional. Contact our office today to protect your investment. Don’t let those long, hot days of mowing, watering, fertilizing, pruning and planting go to waste over the cold months. Let the professionals at Lawn and Pest Solutions in North Mississippi help you. This spring you will be glad you did.