When to start fall lawn care
DIY How to Care for your Lawn in the fall. 4-steps for fall lawn care
thanks to new guys the pest at London's
today we're gonna go over my lawn fall
preparation tips
alright lawn ninjas you want to have the
best looking lawn next season well guess
what it all starts with fall preparation
now's the time to get off the couch get
to the doing let's go step number one
proper watering now when it comes to
fall time and watering it's important
that we don't overwater and it's
important that we don't under water now
you notice my lawn is a lot more green
than a lot of the people around me and
the difference is is they cut the water
early now what that does for the lawn is
it forces the grass into going to sleep
to protect itself or dormancy now it's
also just stress dormancy and it affects
your root development so I'm making sure
that I'm watering once a week at about a
quarter of an inch to force water down
now sometimes I'm only watering once
every ten days depending on how far the
water is penetrating and I'm just
watching the color of my grass now truth
be told the ground temperatures below 55
degrees make it so the lawn isn't
growing super vigorous and that's not
necessarily what I want what I do want
is I want to maintain my color I want to
maintain my balance but I want to make
sure there's enough water deep enough
that the roots want to chase now it's
very typical in the fall time that your
daytime and nighttime temperatures are
gonna begin to come down dramatically
which means that we're gonna have less
evaporation occurring and we don't need
to water as much now as a general of
thumb we don't want the soil to
completely dry out at any given time now
since everybody's lawns are different
soil types are different there's no
possible way I can tell you how many
minutes you need to have on your
sprinkler system it's my recommendation
is to do what I do get a soil probe or
get a screwdriver get in the lawn and
see how far the water is actually
penetrating a good plug will be about
six to eight inches and it won't be too
wet but it also won't be dressed as a
prime example of what drought stress
dormancy does to a lot now will the lawn
survive yeah absolutely it will it just
it's looking dry but when we don't have
water six to eight inches down it's got
nothing to chase now can you fix this in
the springtime yes you can but you're
stunting some very favorable root growth
step number two lowering the height of
cut now I know there's a lot of us out
there that like having long cool season
grass or even long warm season grass but
the bottom line is fall preparation it's
important to lower the height of cut to
prevent fungal problems like snow mold
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now in my opinion there's two ways to
safely lower the height of cut now you
definitely don't want to go from four
inches down to one inch
so my recommendation for you guys to
keep the grass long is start increasing
your mow frequency if you're only mowing
once a week increase that to two to
three times per week and gradually step
down the lawn now a lot of you guys have
heard about the 1/3 rule you don't want
to cut one more than 1/3 of the grass
blade at a time to avoid undue stress in
the lawn now option number two is to
wait for the ground temperatures to get
below 40 degrees at that point the grass
is done growing topically and you can
safely mow from 4 inches down to 1 inch
if that's the way that you want to do it
now the only problem with doing it that
way is this gonna make your lawn look
like hay all winter long instead of
having a nice rich color leading into
the winter step number 3 yard cleanup
doing a yard cleanup at the end of the
season is a very important part it's
important to remember that our mowers
are not perfect and we've dropped a lot
of debris on the soil surface now we may
not be able to see all of it but there
is a certain amount that is definitely
sitting on top of the soil now one thing
about fall time that I think we all
recognize is our trees start dropping
leaves and they also start dropping
seeds now when this happens it ends up
acting like mulch or a weed barrier and
it can suffocate areas now the other
thing is is fungus a lot of you guys end
up with brown patch melting out fungus
because there's too much stuff on the
soil surface now an easy remedy for that
that I
like to use is a dethatcher now you can
get the Green Works T Thatcher or
preferably the Sun Jodie Thatcher like I
use or you can just use a dethatch rake
and pull it all out at fall time now as
a positive side effects are removing the
lawn litter you're gonna see an increase
in color by removing the dead debris
that's just sitting there and clouding
your color now the other positive side
effect is you remove the debris that
harbors fungus making yard clean-up a
fantastic preventive net now once we
moved along debris we can move on to an
optional service called lawn aeration
and I say it's optional because it
depends on the soil type you have if you
have clay type soils you're gonna
experience more compaction with all the
little ones running on it the lawn
aeration helps reduce that soil compact
now think of lawn aeration as if you're
tilling a garden it's going to increase
oxygen in the soil but more importantly
we're going to reduce water runoff and
puddling now we're also removing and
reducing thatch build-up and improving
fertilizer uptake my recommended
aeration schedule is in the spring and
fall when the ground temperatures are
below 55 degrees and if you have sandy
soil one time in the spring step number
four lawn fertilization
alright lawn ninjas now the point of my
fall fertilization is to piss the
neighbors off and just keep it as green
and as simple as possible now here's my
opinion on this your majors which are
your nitrogen phosphorus potassium are
more important than your minors simply
because the microorganisms aren't going
to be pulling those minors as quickly as
they will the majors now my focus on the
majors are going to be nitrogen and
potassium and a little bit of phosphorus
but I'm most interested in the nitrogen
and the potassium
you're probably wondering hey Jinja I
get the nitrogen thing but why the
potassium
well potassium helps the blades of the
grass sustain the cold weather longer so
I'm going to be using a 7% nitrogen with
a 14%
and that's going to help me keep it
greener for a longer then you may not
have access to this exact product in you
Aryan the only thing I want you to focus
on is the first number and the last
number the first number needs to be
higher than a seven and the last number
needs to be higher than a ten the ground
temperatures getting below fifty five
degrees we want to make sure that you
don't purchase a slow-release fertilizer
any sort of urea and ammoniacal nitrogen
that is a quick release is preferred
now as long as you can get that last
number on the bag higher I just want you
to follow the recommended rates on the
bag so if the recommended rates are six
pounds per thousand square feet just
follow those instructions
all right lawn ninjas you want to piss
the neighbors off and keep that grass
looking green throughout the fall and
early winter while the other one's going
dormant follow these easy steps we want
to start with a quick release fertilizer
now you're gonna hear me say some of
them might shock you but using urea or a
quick release ammoniacal nitrogen is the
way to go you can choose a ten percent
nitrogen all the way up to a twenty
percent without having any problems now
I personally I'm going to use somewhere
around a quarter of a pound to half a
pound of nitrogen to release and
stimulate some growth now that's not
actually what's going to make everything
just stay nice and Hardy and green
that's my potassium potassium will make
it survive the cold weather longer
throughout the season well guys this
concludes my lawn fall preparation video
you guys have any questions or concerns
hit me up in the comments love to help
you out till the next time guys the pest
and lawn jinja's
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