Fall Lawn Recovery

Fall is for lawns?

This is the time of year every lawn care person waits for. Cooler days and nights (hopefully) along with at least a little rain helps lawns to recover and thicken after the heat and stress of summer. And pushing a spreader across a thick green lawn on a cool autumn day makes you forget all the problems with summer weeds and brown spots!!!

It was a summer with intense heat and extended drought conditions both of which cause turf grass roots to decline and die back. Add a weather pattern that was perfect for all varieties of turf diseases to further weaken grass plants. And of course we had perfect "Georgia style" weather all summer which crabgrass and summer annual weeds love! It's been kind of the "Perfect Storm" for everything bad that could happen to a lawn.....

The big question now is what to do to help the lawn recover. For lawns that received adequate watering, there may only a few weeds to be cleaned up. If the lawn suffered heat, drought, disease, or root die-back, we hope the crown is still alive and that the grass will soon begin to recover. Many lawns are starting to sprout even without any watering but if you can turn on a sprinkler, it will help. As long as there haven't been insect problems most lawns can recover from their dormancy. If you look closely you may see little green shoots from the grass that is starting to come back. That's a good sign that the roots and crown are still alive.

We help the recovering lawn along by fertilizing to be sure nutrients are available for strong root growth. Core aeration will help to open the soil allowing more water, air and nutrients to be available to the grass plant. And of course over-seeding with improved varieties of Kentucky Bluegrass and Perennial Rye-grass will help the lawn to fill in faster and will strengthen the foundation of the lawn by adding disease or insect resistant turf-grasses. Even if your lawn is thick green and healthy, it can benefit from core aeration to help reduce compacted soil, break down thatch, and make an excellent seeding bed if you want to improve your lawns foundation.

Don't wait until Spring to decide if your lawn needs seed. If it suffered from this summer's stress, make the small investment now to over-seed! Spring seeding brings weeds and crabgrass!! Autumn brings lush green lawns....