Fall Lawn Care Tips

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Modified by John F. Meshna (owner of Dirt works) from an original document published by "The University of Minnesota"

Mowing Your Lawn

It's important to keep your grass 2 to 2-1/2 inches tall throughout the fall. If your grass gets much longer (more than 3 inches) it will mat, leading to winter lawn disease problems such as snow mold. (you know, that white stuff all over it in the Spring after the snow melts) If you cut it shorter than 2 inches, you'll severely limit its ability to make and store food for growth in the spring. Keep your blades sharp. Mowing with dull blades can shred the ends of the grass blades leaving them open to dehydration and entry of disease and give them a brown or white appearance.

 Raking Leaves

Lawn raking in the fall removes excess organic debris, and can help maintain water quality. In winter, freezing and thawing can cause leaves, dead grass, plants, and other organic debris to release soluble forms of phosphate (and nitrates). If these chemicals run off frozen ground during spring snow melt and early spring rains, they can end up in surface water and damage your lawn with excess nutrients.

 Keep grass clippings, leaf litter, and other organic debris off driveways, sidewalks and streets. Raking can be tedious and painful work. Hire some one to do it or do it a little at a time, so you don't get bored, tired or injured. Some rental companies have leaf vacuums and many of the newer mowers mulch the leaves into the lawn. Mulching mowers work well but you don't want to do huge piles of leaves with them.

 Recycling Leaves

You have several options when it comes to disposing of fallen leaves. The preferred way is to compost them because composting keeps leaves out of streets and storm sewers. You can also use fallen leaves, whole or chipped by a power mower, as winter mulch around rose bushes and landscape plants. Leave fallen leaves on your lawn and make several passes over them with a power mower, chopping them into a thin layer fine enough to stay on the lawn without causing damage while providing nutrients for the grass. You can also bag leaves for disposal by municipal authorities. Many progressive towns now require biodegradable bags for curbside pickup of yard debris. You can compost them yourself if you have the space. You’ll need to layer them with straw, household garbage and/or manure to get them to break down efficiently. Leaves tend to mat and can lay in a pile for a long time without breaking down if not layered or stirred up occasionally. This can be a great place for mosquitoes and other pesky bugs to breed so, definitely layer them and stir the pile once and while.

Watering Your Lawn

Even though temperatures might be cooler than in summer, your lawn still needs water. Since lawn grasses continue to grow throughout the fall, watering is still important to sustain growth. Go ahead and water as needed until the ground is cold and beginning to freeze. If you have an automatic irrigation system, avoid damage by having it blown out with compressed air before water freezes in the pipes and sprinkler heads. If it happens to rain a lot, you can skip this step. Fall watering is best done in the morning. Evening watering can work if that's what time you have to do it, but you'll need to pay attention to what's going on out there. Fall nights tend to be cooler and longer than in summer and that can cause fungus to grow on the soil if it doesn't get a chance to dry out once and a while.

Fertilizing Your Lawn

Apply a final dose of fertilizer in mid to late October. You'll provide your grass with nutrients that will be absorbed and stored until needed for spring growth. Lawns that have received late-season fertilizing are often the first to begin growing in the spring. Some lawns require fertilizer in November too, depending on how long your season is.

 “Winterizing” types of fertilizers containing high amounts of phosphorus are only necessary if a reliable soil test indicates a shortage of phosphorus. Otherwise, use a standard organic lawn fertilizer.

Broad Leaf Weed Control

Fall is a good time to control perennial broad leaf weeds such as dandelions, plantain, clover, and creeping charlie (ground ivy) (If these weeds bother you, I highly recommend that you leave the clover at least.). A number of weeds can be removed by hand. Plantain is one of the easiest weeds to pull by hand. The roots are shallow and if you grab the whole plant, leaves and stems at once, it usually comes right up in one piece.

- Clover is good for your lawn and calling it a weed is a very sad thing indeed. It ass nitrogen, breaks up hard pan soil and attracts bees amoung other things

- Plantain can take the itch out of poison ivy rashes when crushed up and applied topically

 Don’t choose your weed-control strategy without a careful evaluation of the number and types of weeds in your lawn. Remember—you don’t need to apply herbicides over your entire lawn unless there’s extensive weed infestation, in which case, you might want to have a soil test done and check the pH and find out what's out of balance.

Applying Lawn Booster - a corn gluten fertilizer for weed control will kill off all the weed seeds in your lawn for 60 days and fertilize as well. Lawn Booster kills all seeds so, don't use it if you're overseeding the lawn and avoid using it in areas where you might be starting new grass. If you apply it in August, you can wait 60 days and then overseed your lawn safely.

Fall is the best time of year to establish or repair lawns by over seeding or sodding unless you live in a very warm climate. Call your local extension agent for advice on what time of year is optimum for planting new grass. (lawn Tip) Seeding should be completed by mid-September in northern climates. Cool temperatures usually make fall seeding or sodding successful. Be sure to complete your sodding before very cold weather sets in.

Rake the lawn area before you over seed to remove debris and dead grass. Raking also scarifies and loosens the surface of the soil a little bit, giving the lawn seeds a nice little place to find shelter and grow. Those little divots can be the whole world to a tiny seed. It's where the moisture from dew collects and they provide shelter from the wind and foot traffic while the seed germinates.

When you seed a lawn for the first time or overseed an old lawn, save a little of the seed for applying later. There will always be trouble spots that are hard to get started so, saving a little of the seed for later will allow you to go back out there and repair any problems that come up using the same species of grass the rest of the lawn has.