Central Turf's maintenance tips for lawns.

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Autumn Maintenance

Now that summer is waning temperatures are cooler, days are shorter and the snow may soon be here. All lawns need some work to be put away for the winter just like your grill or patio furniture. This is the time to put some work on your lawn so it can survive the winter.
This is not to say you have to spend all your weekends on your lawn. Instead plan at least one maybe two weekends doing simple maintenance.

You must rake your lawn for a variety of reasons. First, leaves hold a tremendous amount of acids changing the Ph level of your soil. Over a short period of time this will thin your turf and prevent new growth. Think about walking in a forest, how much grass is actually growing? Not much since leaves act as a protection against competition. summer. The second reason to rake is to allow what little sunlight is left these days to help your grass grow. The third reason is to allow the grass to breath. Leaves trap moisture underneath. Should snow cover the leaves this will trap the moisture and perhaps suffocate, freeze or promote mold growth on the grass.
Keep it mowed short going into the winter to allow the grass to breath under the snow. You can keep your lawn manicured like the professions. Since we are in a dry stretch take the time to drag the hoses to water since the water will not evaporate in the cooler temps. All this will get the grass healthy going into the winter. One note on mowing: we recommend standard mowing. Mulching mowers create too much wet thatch that suffocates the lawn defeating the purpose of mowing short. Bagging clippings takes the nitrogen off your lawn creating the need for more fertilizer. Standard mowing leaves the clippings on top of your lawn where they dry out and go back into the soil to be used by your lawn again. The only time you should bag clippings are after you have let the grass grow too long and you need to cut a lot off the plant.
We tell everyone they should aerate the yard. However, we recommend aerating in the spring. In the spring lawns have a chance to knit all summer, and in the fall aerating opens lawns to the pollen.
Usually, irrigation is not needed in the fall. However during dry years like these you will need to keep your lawn moist going into the winter. If your lawn is dry we recommend watering for longer durations, but infrequently. If you have an irrigation system set it to run on each zone for a long while, but only every other day. This will put down more water less often. The water you apply will soak deeper into the ground encouraging the roots to chase the water. Plants with deeper roots can better survive the winter. One note on watering: be careful not to water below freezing temperatures. First, this will damage your sprinklers, especially with mist type sprinklers. Second, watering below freezing temps can damage the grass, especially if winter hits the day your sprinklers freeze.
Apply fertilizer before the ground freezes. Grass has life cycles one of which is to store food for the winter. This is why fall fertilizing is important. However, caution needs to be used since too much can create mold under the snow suffocating the grass. Central Turf Farms' grass will be slow to green up next spring so fertilize heavy if it hasn't been applied for a few months. This stored fertilizer will give your grass an early green up that will last through the spring and summer. Some customers fertilize only once a year and just before it snows or freezes. The UofM extension Services offer soil testing to determine what elements your lawn needs to grow health plants. Take advantage of this service and buy fertilizer according to their recommendations. Otherwise, try to keep a balanced blend with ever numbers nitrogen, phosphorus and pot ash. The nitrogen is the basic building block for your lawn. The phosphorus encourages more root growth, much needed in the fall since grass' life cycle is to store food in its roots for the winter. Contrary to pop science phosphorus does not 'move' or run-off in the soil. Be careful not to spill fertilizer on your grass and always clean up spills from your driveway. Too much fertilizer can sterilize your soil for over a year and kill anything you try to grow there.
You have areas that did not through the winter, as was the case for many since we had a lack of rain. Odds are that by now these areas will not come back, and should be covered before winter to keep out the weeds since if the areas are large enough they may take too long to fill in from the surrounding turfgrass. In these cases you may need to resod to avoid foreign grasses from filling in the dead spots. Sod from any of Central Turf Farms' can be found from our distributors.

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