How can you add a final lawn service for your clients so their yards will grow green and dense next spring? In this blog post, you’ll learn five essential lawn services to protect dormant grass throughout the winter, including
- Fortify turfgrass roots with winterizer
- Lower your mower for the final cut of the season
- Insulate customers’ lawns with topdressing
- Encourage customers to limit foot traffic this winter
- Watch out for winter pests and snow mold.
Fortify Turfgrass Roots with Winterizer
Winter fertilizer for cool-season grasses contains nitrogen and potassium in a 1-0-1 or 1-0-0.5 ratio. For example, you’re looking at the back of the fertilizer bag for 21-0-20 or 19-2-13.
Potash (Potassium) helps turfgrass roots grow deep into the soil and develop fine root hairs, enabling the root system to find moisture and nutrient storage deep underground. Potash also prevents turfgrass cells aboveground from bursting when freezing temperatures strike.
Additionally, nitrogen helps turfgrass stay greener longer into the colder months while storing nitrogen in the root system over winter. This storage leads to an early green-up in spring.
Warm-season grasses also need winter fertilizer, but only if it doesn’t contain nitrogen. You don’t want the turfgrass to grow. Instead, you want the nutrients to enable a robust root system.
You should also avoid using too much potassium (potash) on cool-season lawns, which could lead to snow mold, a winter fungal disease.
LoveLawn.com says the only fertilizer applied to warm-season lawns should be potassium (potash), 0-0-60 on the fertilizer bag. The winter fertilizer application should be spread in September or October.
Use our broadcast spreaders to apply winter fertilizer to your customers’ lawns. Ensure that the soil is moist from previous rain and that rain is forecasted for the fertilizer to activate. Watch this video about adjusting the Spyker dial for improved spreading accuracy.
Lower Your Mower for the Final Cut of the Season
Remember to rake or mulch leaves by mowing. Then, clean up debris from lawns before you provide your customers with the final cut of the season. Give cool-season turfgrass its final mow in early December when daytime temperatures reach 40°F and cool-season grasses are semi-dormant.
For warm-season lawns, you should wrap up the season with one last mow in November, when daytime temperatures reach 50° – 55°F. At that time, warm-season grasses will be dormant.
Learn more: How to Sell Your Fall and Winter Services
Your aim should be to trim the turfgrass between 2–2 ½” to protect it from cold stress and snow mold.
While you don’t want your customers’ lawns to be tall, ensure the dormant grass is at the right height to protect it. LoveLawn.com recommends that you cut turfgrass at 2–2 ½” tall and don’t cut turfgrass below 2” for its final mow.
Insulate Customers’ Lawns with Topdressing
Winterkill refers to cold, dry winds and other weather phenomena that cause turfgrass to die over the winter. Both cold- and warm-season grasses need protection from winterkill during dormancy.
There are four types of winterkill, according to Penn State’s Extension Service:
- Desiccation
- Direct low-temperature kill
- Ice encasement
- Crown hydration.
Topdressing, which consists of compost, sand, and topsoil, protects dormant grass from four types of winterkill. To protect dormant grass, only spread a light layer on your customers’ lawns.
We recommend our Mulch n’ More Spreader for applying topdressing to your customers’ turfgrass.
Read more: Fall Topdressing Services: Reviving Lawns Naturally
The Best Spreader for Topdressing Golf Greens
Encourage Customers to Limit Foot Traffic This Winter
If you want your customers to protect their dormant grass over winter, urge them to stay off their lawns.
You don’t want to discourage kids from enjoying saucer slides on a snow day, but if your lawn service customers wish for a pristine yard, it means limited foot traffic.
During the winter, ice crystals form at the turfgrass’s crown and can damage the crown with continual foot traffic.
Homeowners can also reroute kids and pets on their lawns. Here are three ideas to share with your lawn care customers:
- Steer kids to play in one part of the yard
- Guide pets to do their business in another section of your yard
- Urge homeowners to consider putting in wider walkways, creating play spaces with artificial turf or sod, or using mulch in play areas with swing sets and jungle gyms.
Watch Out for Winter Pests and Snow Mold
You can educate your clients on the dangers of winter pests and snow mold in your blogs, emails, and other customer relationship management. Include practical tips for protecting dormant grass from these pests and snow mold.
One selling point for protecting dormant grass includes the pre-winter lawn care mentioned in this blog post. If homeowners keep their lawns shorter during the winter without allowing leaves to pile up on dormant grass, they’ll protect their lawns from winter pests.
Winter pests like voles, rabbits, and moles tunnel under leaves and in tall grass, causing rows of soil to overturn. You’ll notice this tunneling when you visit lawns in the spring. Plan to use a lawn roller to flatten the soil.
You can help your customers avoid snow mold by correcting yard drainage problems and using the correct fertilizer at the right time on their lawns. Poor drainage after heavy snows and rains and overfertilizing dormant grass lead to snow mold.
Learn ways to upsell your lawn services with yard clean-ups, winterizer, insulating with topdressing, and preventing winter pests and snow mold. You’ll have happy customers when you protect their dormant grass over the winter.
Select the Perfect Match with Spyker Spreaders
Our spreaders and other landscaping equipment at Spyker Spreaders provide winter-long protection for dormant grass.
Get your Spyker Spreader today to add to your landscaping arsenal. You can buy our spreaders at your local dealer, online, or at the Spyker Store.
Have questions about your Spyker Spreader or need customer support? Contact us today through our contact form.
Sources:
Extension.PSU.edu, Winterkill of Turfgrasses.
GetSunday.com, Tips for a High-Traffic Lawn.
LawnLove.com, How Short to Cut Grass Before Winter.
Ibid., How to Winterize Your Lawn.
Ibid., What Is Winter Fertilizer?
SuperiorLawnCareUSA.com, What Is Snow Mold and How Can I Prevent It?
