Don't Make These 4 Fall Lawn Care Mistakes

Your Northeast Ohio lawn goes through quite a bit throughout the year.

In spring, it bursts into life with lots of green growth. Then, in summer with proper care it survives heat and drought.

By the time it cools down in fall, your lawn can take a big breath and relax a bit, regrouping as it prepares hunkering down for winter.

However, even though the weather and your lawn’s growth are chilling a bit, this is not time to neglect lawn care.

While you may not be thinking about your lawn as much during autumn, this is actually a time when people make the most lawn care mistakes.

Let’s look at some fall lawn care essential tasks to ensure you don’t make any of these autumn errors.

Fall is the best time to do some simple maintenance tasks for your lawn.

Why? Because preparing your lawn for winter to get it ready for the coming spring’s growth is essential to ensure a healthy grass stand.

Avoid these 4 lawn care mistakes to ensure success.

Mistake #1. Leaving Fall Leaves on Your Grass

Once those tree leaves change into brilliant shades of red, orange, and gold, they begin to fall onto your lawn.

Keeping up with the leaves can feel incredibly overwhelming. It seems like the second you clean them up, the lawn is full of leaves again.

Mulched leaves left on the lawn will decompose and add plant-usable organic matter, so just mow over them if there are not too many.

If the leaves have piled up, rake them up or blow them into piles and dispose of or remove them to help your lawn not only look fresh, but also be better prepared for winter.

Mistake #2. Mowing Incorrectly Before Winter

You might get the idea that as winter approaches and you’re getting ready to mow your grass for the last time that you need to mow it super short.

In reality, you want to mow it to 2.5 to 3 inches in height during your last mow of the season as part of grass care in the fall. This is just a tad shorter than your regular mowing at 3.5 to 4 inches. It also ensures the grass isn’t too tall for developing snow mold but not too short to let the cold weather stress it out.

Mistake #3. Ignoring Fall Lawn Fertilization

In autumn, you want to properly prepare your lawn for the upcoming winter.

You might think you can just let your lawn go into dormancy, but one fall lawn care task you should never forget before it goes into winter slumber is fall fertilization.

This task gives your lawn the nutrients it needs going into winter so it can burst forth with thick, green growth come spring.

Mistake #4. Neglecting Aeration & Waiting too Long to Seed in Fall

Autumn is the best time to aerate and overseed your lawn in Northeast Ohio.

First of all, aeration allows your grass some time to develop stronger roots while exposing the soil to a good dose of nutrients. Aeration is the removal of small soil plugs, and it gives your tired, worn, compacted lawn a chance to more easily receive oxygen, nutrients, and water at the root-level where it’s needed most.

Overseeding as part of care for a lawn in fall is the perfect addition to aeration because those removed plugs create the ideal holes for grass seed to contact the soil. This improves the germination process considerably, making overseeding more successful in strengthening and thickening your lawn.

It’s Time to Schedule Fall Lawn Care for Your Yard

Autumn comes fast in Northeast Ohio. Before you know it, the leaves are changing and falling off the trees, and you’re adding a sweater and a coat to stay warm.

You might already be looking around and wondering what fall lawn care tasks you need to do to ensure your grass has a great fall and winter. But you might be too busy to even think about it. With everything on your plate, the last thing you want to add to your list is preparing for winter. There are pumpkins to carve and fall leaves to admire – not to mention a Thanksgiving meal to plan. We completely understand.

But you also don’t want to wait until the last minute. Turf Pride can help you prepare your Ohio lawn in fall for a tidy winter and gorgeous spring.

Want to improve your lawn’s health and create a thicker, greener lawn? Turf Pride can help. Get started today with a free quote. Together, we’ll customize a plan that gives you the most attractive lawn on the block.