How to Keep Your Lawn Healthy for Winter

healthy lawn

Do you feel the chill in the air? That’s a signal that autumn will soon turn into winter. While you may think that you’re finished with all of your lawn care except mowing and cleaning up, that’s not entirely true.

It’s also the right time to put down that last application of winter fertilizer.

Here are some fall lawn care goals

  • To keep mowing until the first frost
  • To keep clearing leaves from your lawn
  • To add the last dose of winterizer.

How does this give you a healthy lawn? It provides turfgrass the nutrients it needs to overwinter.

Add Potash Winter Fertilizer for a Healthy Lawn Going into Winter

Cool season and warm season grasses have different needs at the end of fall. Warm season grasses, for example, don’t need any nitrogen to help them because turfgrass will go dormant over the winter.

However, your warm season turf may need potassium (always do a soil test first) in the form of potassium oxide (potash). If you look at the back of a winter fertilizer bag, you’ll see numbers separated with dashes.

The first number is the amount of nitrogen in the bag. For warm season turf, you want that number to be as close to zero as possible.

The second number is for phosphorous (zero), and the third is for potash. You want your potash number to be the highest of the three nutrients.

Here are potash’s features for your healthy lawn:

  • Enhances turf disease resistance
  • Protects warm season turf from environmental stresses, including cold stress
  • Hardens turf’s outdoor cell walls from bursting when the soil freezes.

However, don’t overdo the potash because it could burn your turfgrass. Also, fine fescue only needs a third of the application.

After putting down winter fertilizer, make sure you water your lawn deeply, ensuring that all of the granules aren’t on the grass blades.

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If you want your lawn to remain green throughout the winter, plant annual or perennial ryegrass. Annual ryegrass is less expensive, and you can easily scalp it off when you mow next spring.

Perennial ryegrass is more disease-resistant and has a deep green color. On the downside, perennial ryegrass can last into the spring and summer in shady areas where it competes with your warm season grass.

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Why Your Cool Season Grasses Need Nitrogen and Potash for a Healthy Lawn

If you want to keep your lawn healthy throughout the winter and into early spring, you need nitrogen and potassium for your cool season grass.

Cool season lawns get the majority of their nutrients in the fall. Winter fertilizer creates a healthy lawn by helping your turf recover from the summer’s heat stress, drought and prepares it for the cold winter.

Ideally, you should put down winter fertilizer in the late summer/early fall, and the second application goes down late fall.

Cool season lawns thrive in colder temperatures, which is the opposite of warm season lawns. Quality winter fertilizers have both nitrogen and potash to help yards going into winter.

Winter fertilizer also keeps your turfgrass greener longer in the winter. Granted, when temperatures dip below freezing, cool season lawns will lose their green color.

According to turf scientists, winter fertilizer is essential for putting down your cool season turf. If you don’t apply spring or early summer fertilizer, winterizer will provide all of the nutrients that cool season turf needs for the year.

Why You Need a Brinly Spreader for Your Winter Fertilizer and Ryegrass Applications

At Brinly, we have top lawn and garden attachments that promote a healthy lawn—whether it’s for cool or warm season turf.

If you’re applying winter fertilizer to cool season grass or you’re overseeding your warm season lawn, our spreaders will help you get the job done efficiently.

We also have other lawn care products that make fall lawn care more fun:

  • A lawn roller to push grass seed deep into the soil
  • A tow dethatcher to remove excess thatch from your lawn
  • A lawn sweeper to gather leaves, twigs, clippings, and other debris from your yard.

You can feel confident that your turfgrass will go into winter with all the nutrients and color it needs for a healthy lawn.

You can buy your next Brinly lawn care and garden attachment online. If you have any questions about your Brinly lawn care product, contact our customer service today by dialing 877-728-8224 or filling out our contact form.

Sources:

Lawn-Care-Academy.com, Lawn Winterization Techniques for Cool and Warm Season Grasses.

SodSolutions.com, How to Keep Your Lawn Green Over Winter.

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