Best Winter Lawn Care Tips For Your Carlinville Illinois Home
While your lawn doesn’t require as much care during the winter months, you do have to do a few things to maintain it. Otherwise, you could go into spring with a yard full of weeds and dead grass. Fortunately, even though Carlinville, Illinois, gets cold in the winter, it isn’t difficult to keep up with your lawn care duties.
Winter Lawn Care Musts
The most important thing you can do for your lawn going into the winter months is to clean up any debris. Leaves, toys, and any other debris can smother your grass, which could damage your lawn and promote the growth of snow mold. It can also create areas of your yard ideal for insects, mice, and other pests to inhabit.
When you’re cutting the grass for the last time before winter sets in, you should lower the mower blade a notch or two. This can help reduce damage from freezing and thawing conditions. However, you don’t want to lower the blade so low that you expose the crown of your grass to extreme winter conditions.
Apply Fertilizer to Your Lawn
Use a fertilizer spreader to apply fertilizer to your lawn before winter. To do this, you push the machine back and forth over your grass. The handle of the machine serves as a trigger that shoots fertilizer pellets out onto the lawn. Make sure you follow the instructions on the fertilizer package though, too much fertilizer can burn your grass.
Spread Cool-Weather Grass Seed
Spreading grass seed in the winter lets you go into the spring landscaping season ahead of the game. Purchase grass seed that says cool weather or cool-season on the package because these types of grass can handle winter weather. You can use the fertilizer spreader to apply the grass seed to your lawn too. However, make sure you apply it evenly, you don’t want patches of excess grass to grow randomly.
Rake and Water Your Lawn
After you’ve fertilized and seeded your lawn, you should rake and water it. Raking the lawn helps spread the grass seed evenly, preventing clumps of grass and bare patches. Watering your lawn is part of any good lawn maintenance routine. It helps keep the soil moist so that your new grass can start to grow.
Your lawn maintenance duties lessen in the winter, but if you want to get a head start for the spring, it’s important to prepare your lawn before winter sets in or contact your local landscaping company for assistance. Fortunately, the process is simple, and in the spring, when you have a lush lawn, you’ll be happy you did your winter lawn care routine.