Lawn*Doctor Lawn Care Insights: Fall is the time to improve your lawn

Friday, October 21, 2016

Fall is the time to improve your lawn

Many homeowners ask throughout the season each year, "what is the best thing I can do for my lawn?" My answer is always "to aerate and over seed in the fall with desirable grass types- bluegrass, ryegrass and turf-type tall fescue. In addition to regular fertilization and weed control". However, this question is rarely asked now in the fall, which is the perfect time to implement the answer. Now is the time to repair the lawn from any and all thins spots or damaged areas form the stresses of summer heat, insects, grubs, diseases or general compaction from heavy traffic.

Lawn suffering from summer stress

Same lawn several weeks after early fall aeration and over-seeding

Lawns across the Gurnee, Antioch, Lake Villa and Waukegan area are enjoying the cool temperatures and sunny days of mid-fall. Lawns love this type of weather, which produces cool night time temperatures and warm soil from sunny days. This combination of cool nights and warm soils produces the right combination for both new seed germination and root growth for the existing lawn. This is the exact reason why fall services like over-seeding and aerating are so beneficial to the lawn right now. New seed helps thicken up and fill in summer damaged lawns and aerations allow oxygen and nutrient penetration into the root zone.

Have patience - results from fall services like aerations and over-seeding are not an immediately satisfying. Aerations leave dirt plugs and can trample down grass leaf tissue while they dissolve over a couple of weeks. New seed takes 2-3 weeks to germinate and up to 8 weeks to become full enough to mow. There are no immediate results with any of these lawn services. However if you take pictures and compare before and after months or even seasons apart, you will begin to notice the improvement these services can make over time. As part of an annual program these services generally are maintaining an adequate level of lawn appearance. If you already have a great lawn these services are sometimes just needed as a way to maintain the lawn at a great appearance. Lawns that have never had these services or were damaged from grubs or summer stresses will greatly improve over the coming weeks with a little watering and a lot of patience.