Just like you would prepare a winter wardrobe or get your firewood or heating organised for winter, your lawn too needs to be prepared to manage the cold days of winter.
If your lawn has some weeds or isn’t quite as thick as it was before summer, then now is the time to act. Getting your lawn up to scratch now will make it better equipped to handle the cold conditions. A strong, healthy lawn leading into winter is the key to having a healthy lawn come out the other side.
Once soil temperatures drop below 14 degrees Celsius your grass will start to slow down and go semi-dormant. This is a protection method warm-season turfgrasses use to protect themselves from the harsh conditions of winter. Your lawn will never really go fully dormant and will continue to grow, just at a much slower rate. It’s for this reason, that they still have the capacity to take up some nutrients which will be beneficial for keeping them strong through winter.
What you can do to prepare your lawn for winter
FERTILISE
Fertilising your lawn now with a slow release granular fertiliser like Lawn Solutions Fertiliser will provide a controlled released of nutrient to your lawn for up to 12 weeks. This will keep your lawn strong and healthy through winter, so it’s in its best shape when the weather warms up again in spring.
A liquid fertiliser like Exceed is also a great option to use throughout the cooler months for a quick boost that is absorbed quickly.
PRE-EMERGENT HERBICIDE APPLICATION
Lawn Solutions OxaFert and Oxafert Plus are pre-emergent herbicides for the control of many annual grasses and broad-leaf weeds in warm season turf. The idea of using a pre-emergent herbicide is to target weed seeds before they take hold by forming a barrier at soil level that affects the germination of any new seedlings.
Spreading Oxafert or Oxafert Plus out now will give your lawn protection for up to 3 months from winter weeds.
Oxafert Plus is 20kg and includes an insecticide for added bug treatment.
COLOURGUARD
ColourGuard is a natural organic grass colourant that strengthens and protects grass under extreme conditions and instantly restores the colour by providing natural green pigment back into the grass leaf.
Applied now, ColourGuard will improve your lawns colour and help to protect the leaf from the cold and frost.
LAY LAWN
We harvest all of our instant lawn varieties ALL YEAR ROUND! This means, even though it’s a bit colder, you can still lay a new lawn. When you lay a lawn in Autumn or Winter, it might take a bit longer to establish, but it will require less water for establishment (thanks to the rain) and it will be ready to play on and lay on come spring.
You can also choose a winter active lawn like RTF Tall Fescue and enjoy a deep green lawn through every season. RTF Tall Fescue is our only cool-season variety that actually likes the colder weather. This makes it really well suited to the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa. Find out more about RTF Tall Fescue here.
