Hill Gardens of Maine - The Fall Lawn - Getting The Facts Straight

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Fall Lawn Care - Getting the facts straight
by Fred Davis, MG, Hill Gardens of Maine (To view other articles, click Archives)

Welcome through Fred's Garden Gate! Yes, I know. . .Fall is a busy time of the year. But if you want a lawn that's lush, green, gorgeous, and healthy - not to mention a neighborhood bright spot - then there are a few tasks yet to be done to achieve that easily-attainable goal. Most turf experts recommend fall lawn care steps in the following order: mowing, core-aerating, fertilizing, liming and, to complete the job, raking or mowing again.

Mowing - As a general rule, mowing height should never remove any more than one third of the total leaf area at any one time. So, if your normal mowing height is three inches, your lawn should get its periodic "haircut" when its height reaches about four-and-one-half inches. Cutting away more than one third is, to one degree or another, scalping and can send your lawn into cultural shock. Not good. Especially at this time of the year when the health of turf in the spring depends heavily on unflagging health as it goes into winter. Continue to properly mow as long as the grass continues to grow.

Aerating - Owing to the amount of foot traffic, mower weight, and possibly heavier vehicle weight that most lawns endure during the active growing season, timely and proper aeration rank right up there with correct mowing height, adequate fertilizing, and periodic liming. There are two popular aerating methods - one highly recommended; the other, in my opinion, nearly useless especially on clay soils.

Coring - A core-aerating tool is one which has sharpened, hollow, metal tubes that penetrate into the turf about 2 or 3 inches, and that removes about 30 cores per each square foot. This machine then drops removed cores onto the lawn surface where they are either raked out or mowed to grind them up a bit. After coring, I recommend top-dressing with a good, high quality, fresh compost that, during the final raking or mowing of the cores, will nearly fill core-holes with rich and invigorating nutrition. Doesn't get much better than that!

Spike Aerating - Those little, frequently ineffective gizmos that are either pulled or pushed around a lawn or dragged behind a lawn tractor rarely penetrate more than a half-inch, leaving a tiny hole about the size of a Q-Tip, that almost immediately closes up. What good is that?

Fertilizing - To maintain a lawn's health, it should be fertilized three times a year - once in the spring, and two times during the fall. Fall is clearly the most critical application time. That's when turf needs to thicken and develop strong root systems, promoting early and healthy green-up in the spring. Mid-September and early November are about right for our northern growing area. Apply at the rate of one pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of lawn. That adds up to about 6 pounds of 18-24-6 fertilizer for every 1,000 sq. ft.

Liming - I'd venture that only a negligible percentage of lawns ever get their preferred twice-annual applications of lime. Yet, the owners of those lawns are among the first to complain about their lawns never looking as good as that really nice one down the road. They think that their lucky (and probably rich) neighbor has hired a professional landscaper to keep their lawn looking superbly healthy and attractive when, in all likelihood, he or she simply accomplished their usual fall lawn tasks as outlined here. Lime should be applied at the rate of about 3 to 4 pounds per 100 square feet (an area 10' by 10') both in the spring, then again in the fall. It can be spread by hand or by an inexpensive push-type spreader. A spreader will give more even results. (A Tip: The presence of moss growing in the lawn is an indicator of soil that's far to acidic.)

One last note involves the control of Japanese Beetle grubs that spend winter in the top couple inches of maintained lawn. Unfortunately, it's now too late to do any serious damage to grub populations with BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) for this year. You could apply a drench of chemical insecticides now, or spread one of those new bagged fertilizers containing an insecticide. I don't much care for the idea of spreading chemical pesticides on surfaces that my grandchildren or cats will be playing and rolling around in or on. Better to wait until about July to apply the BT. (A Tip: If you notice little dug-up spots in your lawn that look like someone was excavating a couple of inches deep with a finger or pocket knife, you probably have beetle grubs. These little holes are dug by night-foraging skunks looking for an easy - and tasty - treat.)

It may mean a little extra effort this fall, but that half-day of fall maintenance will result in a greener, more attractive, and certainly more satisfying lawn next season.

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