One of the single most common questions home and property owners have regarding their lawns tends to come up each year: What will happen to the lawn during the winter? Many are just looking for a simple baseline on which to base their expectations, ensuring they know what to be prepared for and how they can help their lawn make it through the cold season and thrive again in spring.

At Olympus Landscaping, we offer a wide array of landscaping services to clients throughout the year, including everything from broad landscape design to assistance with numerous in-person services — such as lawn care. We’re happy to help prepare your lawn and every other part of your landscape for the impending winter, plus to give you basics on what to expect at each stage of the cold season. This two-part blog series will go over everything you need to know.

Fall

We’re still finishing up the fall period now, one where you can expect your lawn to be well-hydrated and in its final weeks of growth. The fall season is typically the time to get your lawn prepped for winter, especially if you’re not expecting any snowfall right away.

During this period, it’s crucial that you focus on deep watering — at least an inch per week. This will ensure deeper rooting levels while also boosting the ground’s overall water table levels. This is absolutely essential for making it through winter; without deep watering, your lawn may be in serious trouble come springtime (of course, natural forms of precipitation that are heavier during fall than summer often accomplish much or all of this for you).

Fall is also the perfect time to aerate your lawn, if you’re not already accustomed to doing so every year (and even if you are). Aeration is key for allowing water and other essential elements to be absorbed into the soil, plus for helping your grass recover well come spring. As a side note, it’s best not to mow your lawn during fall; doing so too early on can damage its root system.

Early Winter and First Frost

As we cross into the actual winter months themselves, you can expect a few things from your lawn. Most importantly, you should be making every effort to keep the ground as dry as possible. If water is allowed to remain on the grass for too long, it will freeze and cause extensive damage; this is especially true if snowfall occurs at any point during early winter.

As the first frost hits, be prepared for your grass to turn brown and appear like it’s dead. In reality, though, it’s dormant — this means that it’s storing energy and waiting for warmer times to come back. There will likely be a noticeable difference between the brown grass and green grass, but you should know that rest is exactly what your lawn needs right now.

In part two of our series, we’ll go through the later parts of winter plus what to expect in your lawn during the early spring. For more on this, or to learn about any of our landscapers and their services, speak to the pros at Olympus Landscaping today.