Caring for your lawn in autumn as the cold and wet British weather approaches is a necessary step to encourage growth for when spring comes around again, ensuring your lawn looks the best across the neighbourhood.
Keep reading to learn more about how you can prepare your lawn for the upcoming winter months, with a little effort and the right landscaping tools, made easy by Brandon Hire Station.
How to Look After Your Lawn in Autumn
As the weather grows colder, it’s tempting to stay wrapped up and warm inside, forgetting the garden until spring rolls around next year, however, your lawn still needs attention in order to remain healthy.
Although your grass will not be growing much in the colder months of winter, autumn is still a very important time to look after your grass in preparation for the year ahead.
Whilst lawn maintenance is a yearlong process, autumn is the time to carry out bigger tasks that will take longer to work their magic. Here, your grass will have autumn and winter to adjust to treatments and soak up those much needed nutrients, giving you lush, green growth next spring.
Preparing Your Lawn for Autumn
When to Scarify your Lawn?
Autumn is a great time of year to scarify your lawn. Performing this before the winter months set in is best to promote growth and recovery for when it matters most.
Scarifying includes removing what is known as the ‘thatch layer’ of your grass, which is made up of your lawns built up debris, such as dead grass, moss and leaves. By removing this, your lawn has more room to grow with greater access to essential elements and nutrients.
You can use either an electric or diesel Lawn Scarifier or Rake to help make this task easier for yourself, whilst still ensuring fantastic results.
When to Aerate your Lawn?
Grass roots need air, water and nutrients to grow at their best. Over the year, your grass will grow thin and compact due to wear and tear, depriving the grass of what it needs within the soil. This is why aerating is so important for the health of your lawn, encouraging thick development.
Aerating consists of using a Lawn Aerator to puncture your lawn with small, deep holes, used to promote air circulation and prevent waterlogging, especially in the British weather.
It is important to note, lawn aerating should not be done on very wet or dry lawns.
Hollow or Solid Tines?
When using a Lawn Aerator, there are two options to consider, depending on the condition of your lawn:
- Hollow Tines - If this is your first time aerating your lawn, we recommend using a model with hollow tines, as it works best for areas that are compact and dense.
- Solid Tines - If you are experienced in lawn care with a well maintained lawn, a model with solid tines might be the best fit for you, as it is commonly used for routine lawn maintenance with less serious problems.
Flattening Your Lawn
After long hours of enjoying the sun in the garden with kids and pets throughout the summer months, your lawn probably needs some much needed TLC. Flattening your lawn is an essential step to guarantee it returns to its best state next year.
All you need to flatten your lawn is either your regular Garden Spade or Garden Roller to level your grass.
By doing this, you will minimise the risks of flooding and dry spots which hold the possibility of ruining that beautiful lawn.
Top Dressing
The final step in achieving the perfect lawn is applying a top dressing to encourage strong root development and overall lawn health.
Here, you can either create your own top dressing out of a mixture of sand, loam and mulch, or purchase a premade blend.
It is important to spread this evenly across your lawn, using a rake will help to make this easier.
When to Apply Autumn Lawn Feed
Autumn lawn feed, as the name suggests, is used best in autumn, aiming to provide grass with extra nutrients to help it to get through those harsh winter months. Using the wrong type of feed can actually give the opposite effect of what you need, with spring and summer feed leaving the grass vulnerable.
So when is the best time to use it? Autumn feed is best used in the early months where it’s not too wet or cold, so September or October is best.
As temperatures drop, your grass becomes dormant and will no longer be able to absorb the nutrients it needs to survive. To give your lawn the best chance of survival and become stronger in the spring, plan ahead so your grass has plenty of time to absorb what it needs.
Don’t wait until it’s too late to give your lawn that much needed care to survive the winter weather and flourish once spring rolls around. By using Brandon Hire Station’s autumn advice, alongside a bit of planning, you can ensure that your lawn will be healthy and thriving.
