While your flower and vegetable gardens are starting to slow down, your grass is gearing up for one last burst of growth. So treat your turf right—right now—and you’ll be rewarded with a lush, thick lawn next spring. Here’s how:
- Continue cutting your grass to its maximum recommended height until it stops growing or goes dormant. Then drop the blade a notch and mow one last time. Don’t know what your maximum height should be? It’s easy: Simply set the height of your mower blade so that you never cut more than one third of the grass blade length at any one time.
- Now’s the ideal time to buck up your lawn with a fresh supply of seed. The seed will have plenty of time to establish itself during the cool fall days if you reseed about six weeks before the first frost is expected.
- It’s fine to leave grass clippings on your freshly mowed lawn, but fallen leaves are a different story. Left on the lawn, they can block sun and moisture from reaching the grass. So rake up the leaves and add them to the compost pile. To speed up the decomposition process, mow them over several times first, chopping them into small pieces.
- Give your grass a taste of this fortified lawn food, and be prepared for a great-looking lawn that’ll sail right through the worst weather winter can throw at it: Mix 3 pounds of Epsom salts, 1 cup of dry laundry soap, and 1 bag of dry lawn food (enough to cover 2,500 sq. ft. of lawn area), and apply at half of the recommended rate with a broadcast spreader.
For more terrific tips and fantastic formulas, check out our Green Grass Magic book. You can even try it FREE for 21 days with our Free Preview! You’ll get everything you need to keep your lawn growing gorgeous and green so that it’s the envy of the neighborhood.