Blog

Fall brings many things to get excited about—Halloween, Pumpkins, Thanksgiving and a bunch of food. But guess what else needs food—your lawn. During all the excitement, your lawn needs some attention as well. Treating your grass right this fall can ensure a healthy carpet of green in the spring for the coming year. 

One of the things that I always share with my clients is that the cooler fall air slows plant growth. Well, guess what. Grass is the same way. Below the ground, roots stay active as soil temperatures remain warmer than air. Above ground, those green grass blades are doing their photosynthesis, and turning sunlight into plant food that’s shifted from the leaves to roots, where it is stored away until spring. 

By providing food to your lawn in the fall, you will help fuel the process, nourishing those roots while aiding them in spreading and growing deeper and wider. 

Why is it so important to have healthy grass roots? It just means that you will have a quicker green up in the spring and my favorite—a thicker lawn—which means that you will crowd out weeds.

Something to keep in mind when fertilizing is that cool season lawns like fescue, Kentucky, and bluegrass, experience peak growth in fall and spring. Making sure to feed these types of grasses is important because grass roots absorb fertilizer during active growth. For me, I have always found it good to fertilize your lawn anywhere between late September through early November. 

I guess the next on everyone’s mind is what kind of fertilizer you should use. My advice is probably check with your local garden center; they normally have the best suggestions. Most fertilizers will typically say on the bag about some sort of slow-release nitrogen, which means the nutrients release slowly over time to grass roots. The numbers on the bag should have a larger first number (N-Nitrogen#) followed by zeros or smaller numbers for phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). An example is something like this: 32-0-10 or 10-0-20.