Fall is a time to prepare for winter, including finishing your lawn checklist by the season’s end. What fall lawn jobs are still on your checklist?
In this blog post, you’ll learn about the necessary lawn checklist items and other fall jobs to complete by the beginning of December, including
- Top 5 winter preparation tasks for your lawn’s checklist
- 6 last-minute tips for winterizing your garden beds
- Trimming your trees and shrubs for winter.
Top 5 Winter Preparation Tasks for Your Lawn’s Checklist
Winter is almost here, so you must complete your fall lawn checklist now. Your lawn needs tidying before the first snowflakes blanket it for a long winter’s nap. Here are five items that need to be on your lawn checklist:
- Remove leaves from your lawn. You don’t want leaves to smother your turfgrass and harbor disease. Plus, leaves provide cover for field mice and voles to sneak into your yard and head for the nearest tree bark to munch on.
Our lawn sweeper replaces raking by picking up leaves, small twigs, grass clippings, and thatch. Our tow sweepers use brushes that comb your yard by shifting debris and flipping the material into the sweeper’s hamper.
You then empty the filled hamper in your compost pile using the available pull rope.
- Winterize your turfgrass with fertilizer. Winter fertilizer or winterizer contains nitrogen and potassium. Potassium strengthens turfgrass cells from bursting in freezing temperatures and develops deep roots in the soil to find hidden moisture and nutrition during the cold winter.
Nitrogen will keep your grass greener longer into fall and early winter while also storing nitrogen in the root system over the winter for an early spring green-up.
Cool-season lawns need this fertilizer in November, while warm-season grasses need winter fertilizer in September or October.
Since the best winterizer is in slow-release pellets, use our fertilizer spreaders, designed for regular lawn feeding, weed control, overseeding, and pest control.
Learn more: How to Keep Your Lawn Healthy for Winter
New Product Alert: Brinly’s 54” Lawn Sweeper with DOUBLE-HELIX Brushes
- Cut Your Lawn Shorter for Wintertime. Both cool- and warm-season grasses need a final mow at the end of the growing season. At the last mow, remove 2–2 ½” of grass for both types of turfgrass.
The last mow of the season protects dormant grass from snow mold and winterkill. Cool-season turfgrass will be half an inch shorter than usual, while warm-season grass will be half an inch taller.
- Define your lawn’s borders with edging. Do you love crisp, clean lines that highlight the lawn’s edges? Make sure it’s one of the jobs on your lawn checklist.
You edge your lawn after you give its final mow. You’ll need a string trimmer, a wheeled lawn edger, or a manual edger. Each type of edger has its strengths and weaknesses, but they all create crisp lines between your lawn, hardscapes, and flowerbeds.
- Apply pre-emergent weed control to warm-season grasses. While cool-season grasses may receive some weed control, southern lawns need pre-emergent weed control to prevent cool-season weeds, such as poa annua (bluegrass) and chickweed, from popping up.
Wrapping up your lawn checklist will allow you to feel you have accomplished all the tasks necessary for a healthy lawn.
6 Last-Minute Tips for Winterizing Your Garden Beds
While you probably harvested all your vegetables and fruits for the season, there are still some last-minute tips for winterizing your garden beds. You can add these tasks to your lawn checklist or create a garden checklist.
Learn more: 10 Key Tips for Post-Harvest Garden Maintenance
Beginner’s Guide to Composting
Here are six last-minute garden bed tips for preparing them for winter:
- Finish pulling weeds
- Apply compost
- Chop up leaves or remove them from your garden
- Put down a light layer of garden mulch (different from what you put in your flowerbeds and other landscapes) if you’re not using leaves
- Plant spring bulbs
- Plant a cover crop to add extra nitrogen to the soil.
Our ground-engaging products are perfect for your hobby farm’s large garden or food plot for hunting.
Trimming Your Trees and Shrubs for Winter
While you want to wait until late winter to prune your trees, you can still trim back overhanging limbs and dead branches. Add to your lawn checklist to remove dead or dying branches, trim your hedges, and trim spouts from the woody plant’s root zone.
Invest in the Best Brinly Lawn Care Attachments for a Perfect Lawn
Maximize your lawn’s health during the winter by using the best lawn care attachments for your turfgrass and garden. Our lawn care and garden attachments work with your garden tractor to finish the growing season on a high note.
Buy your Brinly lawn care and garden attachments at these online retailers.
Got questions about your Brinly lawn care and garden attachments? Contact our customer service today!
Sources
Experigreen.com, Lawn Winterizer Vs. Fertilizer: What Is The Difference?
Extension.UNH.edu, Pruning Storm Damaged Trees.
HomeDepot.com, How to Edge a Lawn.
LawnLove.com, How Short to Cut Grass Before Winter?
