The Importance of Winter Lawn Care
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“I need to do what now?” This is a question you might get asked if you told someone that they needed to do be concerned about winter lawn care. It seems like you wouldn’t need to worry about it, right? After all, what can you do about it? It’s buried under snow? Well, it turns out that while there isn’t a lot you need to do, there is still a few things to consider if you want it to be at its best come spring.
1. Keep It Clean
Hopefully, you cleaned up all your tools and your kid’s toys before it snowed. Now that the snow has come, keeping the lawn clean is just as important. Maybe the snow came before the leaves finished falling. If more leaves pile up after snowfall, you definitely want to get them cleaned up. They still create patches that attract mice, insects, and mold, which can harm grass. Kids toys create excess weight on top of the snow, which stresses the grass. Also, anything that gets on top of the snow in winter will end up on top of the grass in spring, creating a mess for you to deal with once the snow melts. It’s easier to keep the lawn clean in winter than it is to clean the lawn once it melts, so save yourself a little time and effort and get stuff off the snow before spring comes.
2. Minimize Traffic
Dormant grass will tolerate a modest amount of traffic. It’s perfectly fine to let your kids go out and play in the snow for a while if they want to, but be aware of how much traffic is otherwise on the lawn. If there’s too much, it will damage the grass. While it won’t likely be enough to kill it, unless the traffic is extremely heavy, or extremely heavy things make up the traffic, but it will stunt it. When spring comes, you might find a well worn path in the lawn takes much longer to green up and creates unsightly patches of brown.
This shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you. Just make sure you watch where you’re walking and how much. If it’s not necessary, don’t go onto the lawn at all during the winter and you’ll be fine, even if the kiddies go out to play.
3. Monitor Weather Conditions
Dormant grass is pretty resilient and will tolerate a surprising amount over the winter. It’s not invincible, however; too extreme of weather conditions can ruin it. This is especially true of snow and ice are allowed to thicken in any patches. Densely packed, snow creates a lot of weight and will damage the grass. If it condenses into ice, it can break grass stems, either by freezing them, or by cutting into them. Fortunately, you can fairly easily prevent this. Keep an eye on weather reports and if a big storm is coming, it’s worth taking a little time to break up patches of thick snow and crack any ice you find. That way, when the heavy storm comes, less of the existing snow will get packed down.
4. Watch The Salt
Ice on your driveway is dangerous and you need to get rid of it. The best way to do that is with sidewalk salt. You have to be careful, however; too much salt is bad for grass. If it gets into the soil, it can leech water and nutrients out, leaving the grass to shrivel up and die. You have to salt your driveway for your own safety, but be careful how much you use. Be careful how you spread it, too. Try to keep the salt off the grass as much as possible and avoid shoveling snow on your driveway onto your lawn. To be safe, use salt that’s calcium-chloride based instead of chlorine-chloride. Chlorine based salts may claim to melt ice faster, but chlorine is toxic and will kill your lawn much faster and with much smaller doses than other salts.
Let Us Help You Out
Hear at Cache Valley Lawn King, we do everything we can to keep people’s lawns in good condition. If you need help with any winter lawn care, even something as simple as shoveling snow, get in touch with us and see how we can help you out. We’re always available to help when you need it.
