Autumn Lawn Care and Maintenance
Autumn is an important time in your lawn care programme. You need to rejuvinate your lawn after the summer, tackling any problem areas that have appeared, while also making sure that the grass and soil are in good condition to get through the winter in great shape.
In early September it is important to examine your lawn to decide what course of action you need to take over the coming weeks.
Although other problems areas may be identified when your lawn is examined, the main areas to tackle in your lawn in autumn are:
Deal with Moss
September is an ideal time to deal with moss growing in your lawn.
There are a number of reasons why you may have moss in your lawn, such as mowing too close, compacted soil that doesn’t drain properly or grass growing in shady areas.
The first task is to get rid of the existing moss by treating with a mosskiller, before dealing with the underlying causes so that the moss doesn’t come back again.
Most moss will have died off within two weeks of treatment at which point it should be removed from the lawn by raking or scarifying.
Scarify to allow the lawn to breathe
Scarifying the lawn to get rid of the dead moss will also remove thatch from the surface of the lawn. Thatch is a build up of grass clippings, dead moss and other debris that causes a number of lawn problems such as
- Preventing proper drainage
- Encouraging weeds
- Allowing turf diseases to flourish
Removing the dead moss and layer of thatch will allow the surface of the soil to breathe, as well as letting water get through.
Improve lawn drainage
Although removing thatch will allow water to penetrate the top layer of soil, areas subject to heavy use often suffer from compaction, which stops water draining away properly leading to waterlogging, poor grass root growth and development of moss and lichens.
It is therefore important to improve or maintain the drainage in your lawn - a process known as aeration.
Most home gardeners do this by pushing a garden fork in to the lawn at regular intervals and wiggling it about, which creates air-chennels in the soil. Although this would appear to be a simple solution, it can actually make compaction worse on certain soils, leading to more problems than it solves. Use of a hollow-tine aerator is usually more suitable.
Once the drainage / air holes have been made in the lawn, a top-dressing should be applied. This is normally a blend of sand and soil, which is spread over the lawn with the back of a rake or a lute. This fills in the holes made during aeration and also encourages strong grass growth. Top dressing can also be used to fill in minor bumps and hollows in the surface of the lawn.
Feeding the lawn
Regardless of whether other problems have been identified, it is important to feed the lawn in autumn. A lawn feed that is specifically designed for autumn / winter should be used.
Autumn lawn feed is designed with high levels of potash and phosphates but low levels of nitrogen, which toughens up the grass and feeds the roots without producing lots of leaf growth. Too many soft leaves would make the grass susceptible to disease or frost at this time of year.
