At the end of summer your lawn is tired – and so are you – but don't quit yet!
Your lawn is a whole population of plants. While that indicates differing needs for each potential variety of grass – fescue, rye, and bluegrass – we usually treat grasses as a whole. Therefore, we should treat it in the best possible way. Since our goal is a healthy lawn, with uniform height and color, fall is the time to prepare your lawn for a healthy spring.
You must continue to cut your grass until there's been no visible growth for about two weeks. I know it's time to quit mowing when I have no more clippings to remove. Leave grass at least two inches high, but no more than three inches for winter.
More than three inches of height can pose problems also. If your lawn is too tall, your grass will lay over on itself. Bent down by snow and wind, it will retain too much moisture and may develop fungus diseases such as snow mold. While too much sun and wind can cause damage, your lawn needs exposure to light and air all winter.
Although top growth has stopped, the root systems of your grasses are still growing. They are sending out rhizomes or tillers: tendril-like roots that will sprout new blades of grass in the spring. A green plant lives about three years and then is replaced by new plants from its own rhizomes.
While this is great in your yard, it brings us to another necessary task: edging your flowerbeds. Once a new grass plant grows where your flowers are, it's a weed. Save yourself some weeding time next spring by edging all your beds now.
Autumn is also the season to fertilize your lawn for the last time; further encouraging those roots. Much leaching of soil nutrients has occurred these past two rainy springs, so fertilizing is even more important than usual. Look for fertilizer high in nitrogen, or a winterizer-type, lower in nitrogen and higher in phosphorus and potassium. Fertilizing now will encourage lush growth next spring.
Since your lawn is still growing below ground, keep the falling leaves raked so they don't pile up and suffocate your grasses' roots. Some of your leaves fall late in the autumn. Give a final good raking, sometimes even after the first snowfall has melted. Leaves lying on your lawn all winter can prevent water from reaching the grass or trap too much moisture, causing grasses to rot and die by spring.
By caring for your lawn in the fall, your can encourage healthy growth in the spring. One last task: take your mower in for maintenance now. Then when everyone else is struggling with long waits for repair, you'll be ready for the first cuts of the season next year.
You might think getting your lawn and garden ready for winter is as simple as Robert Frost's line to his apple trees: "Good-by, and keep cold." But not if you want them to be their healthiest come spring. In many parts of the country, now — that is, before it gets too chilly — is prime time to tend to your landscape so it will shine the rest of the year.
Here's what the experts advise to make your plants the envy of the neighborhood:
1.
Feed that lawn! "Right now, it's key to work on your lawn In fact, despite what many people might think, autumn, not spring, is perhaps the most vital time in many parts of the country. In most we grow cool-season grasses, and during the summer they're not very active." Come autumn, however, they revive.
Lawns with these cool-weather grasses — Kentucky bluegrass, fescues, perennial ryegrass — should be fertilized in two waves. The first application, from mid to late September in places like Pennsylvania, should be a fertilizer that's high in nitrogen. The second application, roughly about Thanksgiving but before the ground is frozen, should be a fertilizer that's high in Potassium, which will prepare that plant for next year, (Exact timing for all the advice in this story will vary depending on where you live. A good way to determine if you're giving your lawn what it needs is to get a soil test. It will give you information like soil pH and nutrient levels, and provide recommendations for fertilizer amounts.)
I recommend modest application of nitrogen during the first couple of weeks in September, and a repeat application around Halloween in the Twin Cities area. If you missed the first window, don't fret, but simply make the second application around Halloween. Why not squeeze in two doses in quick succession? "You don't want to stimulate the tender, succulent growth" as the grass girds for winter, he explains; the late-season application is more for the root system. Another tip: Homeowners can drive over leaves with a lawn mower to create a fine mulch as long as the results don't blanket the lawn.
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But … Exceptions to the "fertilize!" rule are the desert Southwest and the Deep South — places like Georgia, Alabama and south Texas — where lawns generally have Bermuda, Zoysia, St. Augustine and centipede grasses. These largely go dormant in winter and don't need fertilizer, says Dave Han, associate professor at Auburn University and state extension specialist for turfgrass. "I cut off fertilizing in this part of the world about Oct. 1," Han says. Fertilizing can be extended along the warmer Gulf Coast, however, and you can feed grass year-round in south Florida and coastal Texas, he adds.
2.
Repair summer's damage. Now is a great time to repair a damaged lawn and reseed. If you're racing the cold, I recommend putting down a perennial ryegrass, which germinates quickly (just four to seven days, versus two to three weeks for bluegrass). Help the seeds take root by Aerating the lawn first or top-dressing them with up to one-quarter-inch compost or soil,.
3.
Don't put away the hose. Though places such as the Pacific Northwest may begin to get rain with autumn's onset, in most areas watering shouldn't end with Labor Day. Generally speaking a lawn should get an inch of water every 14 to 21 days. The ground should be moist as it heads toward winter, but not soggy, which could encourage mold.
4.
Go easy on the pruning. "Probably the most common thing I see people doing is pruning," says Ginger Pryor, coordinator of the Pennsylvania Master Gardener program, citing a common mistake. As a general rule, give your loppers and shears the autumn off. Why? Pruning promotes growth, and you don't want to encourage growth when plants are preparing to go dormant for winter. There are some exceptions, so call your local cooperative extension service if you have doubts about a particular tree.
Now is a good time to cut off dead wood, however, so insects have no place to hide.
5.
Don't tuck in the vegetable garden yet. "There are some great fall vegetables you can plant and still get a harvest," says Pryor. Many vegetables aren't affected by a light evening frost, so long as the days still warm up nicely. Greens like lettuce and spinach often can be harvested within 30 days of planting. Got even more time before Jack Frost really settles in? Think about carrots, broccoli or Swiss chard.
6.
Cover that plot. To prep your garden for winter, plant a nitrogen-rich cover crop like clover that you can simply turn under come spring, suggests Elaine Anderson, program coordinator for the Washington State University/King County Extension Master Gardener Program. Or, "a lot of people just cover the beds in burlap — keeps the weeds down. That's fine."
7.
Transplant away! The experts agree: Autumn is a great time to transplant trees and shrubs. "By planting trees in the fall in the South we have a much longer season for the tree roots to get established" while they don't have "those other stresses" such as heat, explains Shane Harris, a regional extension agent in east-central Alabama who is affiliated with Auburn and Alabama A&M universities. In short, says Harris, the tree benefits because it's "putting all of its energy into root growth."
The same is true in other parts of the country. For example, as a general rule of thumb, evergreens should be transplanted in the first half of September in Minnesota's Twin Cities area, Mugaas advises. "Obviously you can be earlier if you're a little more north, or later if you're a little bit to the south," he says. "Deciduous trees have a little bigger window."
8.
Mulch, Part 1. "We often say the mulch around the tree should look like a doughnut, not a volcano," says Pryor. Pulling the mulch away from the trunk a bit makes it less of a home and meal for voles, chipmunks and mice during the winter, she says.
9.
Making the (flower) beds. Flower beds don't need a ton of work, but there are some things you can do. "One thing we do recommend for fall is cleaning out perennials — things that have a lot of dieback on them," says Pryor. In Pennsylvania, for example, there's a lot of rain in early spring and any dead growth can keep a lot of moisture in the soil, promoting rot in plants like peonies that have heavy root systems. (Other experts disagree about the importance of cleaning up but say it doesn't hurt, and at least can make a flower bed look tidier.) Pryor recommends leaving ornamental grasses in place because they look beautiful in the winter.
10.
Mulch, Part 2. Harris suggests renewing the mulch in flower beds, especially the top two or three inches of plants' root crowns, because that protects a marginal plant from hard freezes. "That's where all of your new growth is going to come back," Harris explains of the crown.
Up north, some homeowners put down hay, which "makes a very good mulch," says Mugaas. Ask at your garden center for "clean mulching hay" — often made of oat straw or wheat straw — but don't assume that the name alone guarantees it's weed-free. Examine the hay for seed heads and other impurities, says Mugaas. Also, hay should be applied only when the ground has gotten very cold.
11.
Clean the pond. Ponds, fountains and other water features are hugely popular today — and they, too, need care to survive the winter. Late September is a good time to clean out the pond — in particular, netting out the abundant leaves that, upon decay, build up the nutrients and cause spikes in ammonia levels that are harmful to fish, says Brett Fogle, president and owner of Florida's MacArthur
Water Gardens. If it's a small pond, you might consider tossing a cover over it from late fall through the winter. Consider using a bacterial additive in the water — microbes that speed the decomposition of leaf scum, fish waste, etc., says Fogle. Also, he says, it's a good idea to drain your pond by 25%-50% for the winter months.
12.
Put your fish on a diet. "The biggest mistake people make is they keep feeding their fish handfuls and handfuls of food" even as their metabolisms are slowing down with the onset of cold weather, says Fogle. That can make them ill, and even kill them. As the temperature hits about 60 degrees, consider switching to a lower-protein, wheat germ food that digests easier, Fogle says. When temps hit 50-55 degrees, you can stop feeding the fish entirely. Don't worry about them going hungry — their metabolism slows enough so that they don't need to eat when the water gets that cold or colder, he says. Yet koi and other pond fish will keep eating when they shouldn't and that can hurt them, Fogle says.
13.
Check pond equipment. Autumn is a good time to change out your pond gear. In warmer months, pumps are often used to circulate the water. "It's actually better for the fish not to run the pump all winter long," explains Fogle. That's because the pump disrupts the thermal layers in the water that the fish exploit to keep warm during the winter months, when they settle near the bottom in a hibernation like state.
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Shut down the pumps and filter and bring the pump inside for the winter, if possible, Fogle recommends. Loosen the fitting on what's left outdoors, so things won't crack in the cold — especially on UV sterilizers, the units that pond owners often have installed to kill algae. Consider, too, a de-icer — basically a floating unit that turns on at the freezing point — or an air bubbler that keeps the top of the pond from freezing. Find more good information about pond care here.
14. Think spring. Now is the time to plant bulbs for spring. They're not very expensive, and they give you something to look forward to. "In our part of the world, our smaller bulbs need to go in now, and the larger bulbs can go in later" — perhaps mid-October or so in Minnesota's Twin Cities area, says Mugaas. Smaller bulbs include crocus and grape hyacinth. Larger bulbs include tulips and daffodils.
Another tip: "It seems sort of counterintuitive to go shopping for plants right now," says Anderson, of the King County Master Gardener program. But she suggests buying perennials that are in bloom now, so you know what they'll look like later. In the Pacific Northwest, that could mean hardy perennials like yarrow and asters. Check the USDA's Plant Hardiness Zone Map to see what will thrive in your area.
Finally, "It's also a good time to take stock of what did well and what didn't," says Mugaas. Gardeners are inveterate tinkerers. "We never have enough time, and we never have enough room."
