Milford lawn care services
Rake
Raking your lawn is essential to keeping it healthy in the winter. The benefits of raking your lawn go beyond looks. Clearing fallen leaves and debris from your yard helps reduce soil compactness and will prevent thatching.
A thick layer of wet, frozen leaves will turn into a large patch of dirt in spring. In the winter, it could lead to snow mold formation and provide a breeding ground for fungi or other diseases.
However, you must be careful to maintain good raking practices like raking lightly or using a leaf blower or yard vacuum to go easy on your soil. If you don't, you could create dead spots.
A useful hack is to shred collected leaves with your mower for decomposition or mulching your yard. However, if you don't have the time to rake, you can quickly hire an affordable yard cleanup service from Milford lawn care.
Aerate
Heavy summer traffic, as well as your mower's wheels running over your lawn, can make the soil become compressed and compacted. With heavy soil compactness, your turf will find it difficult to access nutrients and absorb water/oxygen (since its pores are closed). You should aerate your lawn at least once a year, and it's better to do so in fall in preparation for winter and spring.
Using a spading fork to make holes in your lawn manually is a cost-saving but laborious approach and only suitable for small yards. Aerators are suitable for larger lawns. You can hire an aerator (if you know how to use one) and loosen your soil for winter or opt for reasonable aeration services from Milford lawn care and save yourself the cost and stress.
Overseed
Overseeding means sowing or spreading a layer of grass seeds over existing turf. The cold-season grasses suitable for Milford become dormant in summer. Dormancy is a defensive mechanism for grass to survive harsh weather conditions. The best time to overseed your Milford lawn will be in mid-fall in preparation for winter and spring. However, you must prepare your lawn for seeding by mowing on the lowest setting, clearing out debris, and aerating if needed.
Overseed your lawn by sowing a handful of seeds on bare spots and thinning areas, or use a seed spreader for a larger area. Alternatively, you could hire seeding experts through Milford lawn service, who will first spot-treat bare areas with topsoil before seeding. They will also use professional techniques to get your grass to grow at its maximum density, leaving no room for weeds.
Fertilize
Like overseeding, it is best to fertilize your cool-season grass in the fall in preparation for winter. Fertilize your lawn twice in the fall to allow your turf to grow dense. Ensure that you carry out fertilization before the first winter snow to let the soil store up nutrients.
There are lots of fertilizers available for different soil requirements and seasons. So, it's recommended to conduct a soil pH test to understand the particular nutrient missing in your soil. As a general rule, winter fertilizers are best for the quick recovery of nutrients lost to excessive summer heat. They are also most fit for the cool-season grasses in Milford.
Water wisely
Your Milford lawn doesn't need as much water as in summer. It's best to water only until the first winter freeze. However, you have to be careful not to irrigate before a big freeze. If you do, your lawn will become a sheet of ice (although this isn't so bad, it's a waste of water).
Watering before the first freeze is vital if you seeded your lawn in the fall. It also allows established turf to develop the required strength in its root systems for winter survival.
Snow removal
Milford only has an annual average of 14 inches of snow, and if your lawn is unshaded, it will end up fully covered with ice. You can plow your driveway, parking area, sidewalks, and more or contact Milford lawn service for snow removal in those areas but not your lawn.
Ice protects your cool-season grass and soil throughout the winter; so, it's best you leave it there. Plowing your lawn might make the grass patchy and expose your turf. You must rake your lawn appropriately if you want to leave snow to prevent mold formation.
Control weeds
Cool-season weeds like dandelions, ground ivy, chickweed, and clover are the most notorious and common weeds in Milford lawns. These weeds, being cool-season, will thrive best during fall through winter. However, they are only as powerful as your lawn's overall health and density.
The best approach to controlling weeds is to have a healthy turf with good coverage. If there are no thin areas, bare spots, or patches, weed invasion opportunities are reduced. Trimming to the recommended height, overseeding in the fall, and proper fertilizer applications are the best measures to curb weed development. Even better, you can ask a Milford lawn care fertilization expert to use weed-treated fertilizers on your lawn.
Avoid traffic
Cool-season grasses grow best in cold weather, but during the winter, they stop. Therefore, it's crucial to avoid excessive foot traffic during this period to prevent compaction, patch formation, thinning, and, ultimately, weed invasion.
