Commonly, the winter season affects the lawn grass badly. Most of the grasses turn brown and slightly golden during the winter and some of their varieties start to lose their lives.
Climate conditions, selection of lawn grass variety, soil health, and proper care are some of the basic factors that are responsible for lawn grass health in winter.
You can treat and care your lawn by yourself in winter but for that, you should be aware of the basics of lawn grass.
Here, you will understand the methods of treatment of lawngrass in winter, how to do observation, and some theoretical solutions.
Lawn care in winter in the USA
Lawn condition observation and analysis in winter
For basic observation and analysis, you should make a chart of comparison of requirements, and the initial and current condition of the lawn.
Three basic things you check in your lawn are soil pH, soil moisture, and grass health. If you find moss on your lawn then you should clean that first.
- Soil pH analysis
Soil pH tells us more about components in the soil. It can help you to decide on a proper fertilizer that particular lawn grass needs to grow. Figure out all the least grass patch spots on your lawn. Check the soil pH there first and then you will have a generalized area left to check pH.
- Winter lawn care methods
You have to be aware of your climate conditions before starting treatment and caring lawn in winters. It happens many times that people apply opposite methods on their lawns and then face trouble.
Observe pH data in your observation chart and compare it with the initial pH of the lawn. It will give you the idea to add or change fertilizers.
- Soil moisture observation
It is important to maintain a required amount of moisture in the soil according to the grass breed and climate. More or less irrigation may damage or dormant your lawn grass.
Also, your lawn must incline toward the perimeter or circumference(according to the shape) of the lawn.
So take a soil sample from various sections of healthy areas and unhealthy spots. Now, note down the moisture and compare it with the ideal requirement of that particular breed.
- Grass health
The third observation is about grass health. By touching grass leaves, you can observe the condition of the grass leaves either they may be dry or they start melting if your lawn is not healthy. You can compare leaf size and growth from various sections of the lawn.
Select the sections and pick a small bunch of leaves from every section. Compare them and note down the observation. Check the color of the grass leaves and note that down in the chart and compare it with healthy conditions.
You can also check the strength and condition of the grassroots. Unhealthy grass may indicate by too dry roots or rotten roots.
Methods of lawn grass care and treatment in winter(USA)
Following are some methods to treat and care for your lawn in winter-
- Aeration and scrabbing
Heavy walking traffic, rain, dryness, and less sunlight make soil solid and tough to absorb necessary components like moisture, fertilizers, nutrients, etc. Solid soil makes things difficult for grassroots. It affects the overall growth of the lawn grass in winter.
The aeration process solves this problem at a limit. In the aeration process, we use sharp teeth rake to pinch in the soil and make very thin and deep holes in the ground soil.
Take the long-handle teeth to rake and pinch them in all the dead spots of lawn grass. Apply this process to the entire lawn and repeat in the least grass areas. You can do it 2 times a month.
Scrabbing the lawn grass is also a good way to keep soil active to absorb things. You can do it scrabbing with thee same tool of aeration.
- Weeding
Moisture invites spontaneous plants in the lawn no matter if you have it in the summer region or winter.
If you don't have grass varieties that invade other plants, then your lawn grass may not get full growth and hide under such unnecessary plants. You need to clean your lawn from such plants to get the best results for lawn grass. Weeding is the process called in which we clean such plants from fields or lawns.
For lawn weeding, you need a long-handle weeder tool to clean them. Weeding is easy in small lawns but for bigger and wider lawns, you need a proper spontaneous plant killer. Although wrong selection or overuse of such plant killers may cause you dormant lawn grass.
So read all the instructions and details of such products before using them. You can also call professionals to weed your lawn.
- Mowing
In winter, you should not mow summer season lawn grass. Most of the lawn grasses get dormant in the winter. So it is unnecessary to mow your dormant lawn in winter.
But before winter, you can mow your lawn regularly in the autumn. Some lawn grass varieties grow fast, so you should mow such grass on weekly basis. Some grasses are thick and grow on the gap, you should mow them between 10 to 12 days regularly.
We set mowing height according to the requirement and the variety of the lawn grass. Thin turf grasses mow at the height of 2.5 to 3 inches. Thick turf grasses mow at the height of 1.5 inches to 2 inches.
Either you can use an automatic mower or you can do it manually on your lawn. It is not a heavy workload but takes a good time.
- Overseeding
For a thick grass lawn, to recover dormant spots, and to replace slow-growing grass with new seeds, we do overseed the lawn.
In winter, you can't practice overseeding but to get healthier results in winter, you can overseed your lawn right in the autumn. It will help you to treat and care for your lawn even in odd conditions. This will increase the chances of survival of the lawngrass in winter.
- Fertilization
In winter, we slow down the fertilization process. To make your lawn grass able to survive in winter, you need to fertilize your lawn either in spring or autumn.
Use a fertile soil mixture and then use the necessary fertilizer according to the need of your grass.
- Removing moss from the lawn
A long time of moisture and low sunlight may cause moss on your lawn. In wet climate conditions and with no-drainage cause moss easily and faster.
If one doesn't remove the initial moss from the lawn, then it can easily overtake the lawn grass and moss invade all the lawn grass area. You can do it by yourself at home and also learn how to demoss or remove your lawn.
Requirements to care lawn in winter
Most of the time, you need the same requirements for lawn treatment but in many cases, you need to change fertilizers and methods.
Following are basic requirements to take care of your lawn in winter-
Tools requirement
Tools selection is very important if you are going to handle your lawn by yourself. You have to select the tools according to your method practices. You need tools for aeration, weeding, mowing, shaping lawn, scrabbing, and spraying.
Following are tools one should keep to treat their lawn in winter-
- A lawn mower(either automatic or manual)
- Long handle teeth Reck
- Grass trimmer
- Long handle leaf rake
- Weeder tool
- Sprayer bucket
Analysis report chart
This is the first step and requirement of lawn care anytime throughout the year. You need a pH scale, TDS meter, and a chart to note down the analyzed data.
This report chart will help you to treat or reestablish your lawn in the future.