Preparing Your Lawn for Snow

Preparing Your Lawn for Snow

While your lawn might not be foremost on your mind with winter coming, snow and cold can do serious damage. By making preparations now, you can reduce the effects of moisture, cold and snow mold to help your grass come back full and lush next spring.

Control Your Leaves

Left undisturbed, fall leaves can create a thick mat of rotting material that blocks air and sunlight from the grass, keeping it from absorbing the nutrients it needs to survive the winter. Once it starts snowing, this layer holds in moisture that encourages the growth of snow mold.

Honda’s mulching mowers are designed to handle large amounts of lawn debris, even if it’s wet. If you mow frequently as the leaves fall, you’ll be able to turn those leaves into mulch, feeding the soil and reducing the money you need to spend on yard waste disposal. Expect to mow at least twice a week at the peak of the season. If the number of leaves gets out of hand, you should collect and dispose of them either by creating a mulch pile or by having them collected as yard waste.

Fertilize, but Not Too Much

By now, the time for fall fertilizing has passed in most of the country, but if you’re still a few weeks away from winter, now is a good time to get a soil sample tested so you can use the right mix on your soil. Nitrogen is emphasized in fall fertilizer mixes to encourage chlorophyll production and the resulting sugar stores needed to survive the winter, but too much can promote the growth of snow mold. This makes it critical to get the right balance to supplement your grass without opening it up to infection.

Cut Your Grass Short

The less grass you have, the less moisture it can hold. Ideally, the blades should be around an inch in height, but you may need to go a little higher to keep from cutting into crowns. Remember never to mow more than 1/3 of the grass blades at one time. Warm season grasses should stop growing after the first freeze, while cool-season grasses may grow just enough to need one more mow after the initial freeze.

Be Careful with Hibernating Grass

Both warm and cool season grasses should stop growing once temperatures are regularly below 40°F (4-5°C) and enter hibernation. Photosynthesis shuts down, the blades of grass turn brown and the plant starts using the sugar stores collected through the later summer and fall. In this state, the grass is very sensitive to damage, especially if it’s covered in frost. At this point, the grass shouldn’t be mowed; walking and any other contact with the ground should be kept to a minimum.

Spread Out Snow

When most of us use our snowblowers, we simply aim the chute to get the snow away from the area we’re clearing. This centers the snow on one area, creating a pile that is thermally insulated, slowing down the melting process. In turn, it keeps the ground underneath wetter longer, encouraging the growth of snow mold and the washing away of mud surrounding the grass. To keep this from happening, try to adjust the chute angle to drop the snow in a different spot with each pass, spreading it out over a wider area.

Take Care of Your Equipment, and Your Equipment Will Take Care of Your Lawn

If you have Honda power equipment or a Honda small engine, you can get everything you need for it at www.hondalawnparts.com. We’re a certified dealer for both arms of Honda’s outdoor equipment division, letting us ship OEM parts across the U.S. and Canada.

The Last Mow: Preparing Your Lawn for Winter

preparing lawn for winter

Fall and winter are on their way, which means it’s time to think about last minute lawn care tasks that will help the grass come back to life in the spring. These tips will help you prepare your lawn for the winter from fall lawn care tasks to the final mow of the season.

Things to Do Before the Last Mow

To get the best lawn next spring, there are several tasks that should be completed before the grass goes into hibernation:

Aerating and dethatching – Dethatching removes the layer of grass stems and tough plant material that gathers on the surface of the soil while aerating loosens the top soil. Together, these increase the grass’ access to water and oxygen.

Fertilizing -While high nitrogen content mixes are usually recommended, your lawn will do a lot better if you match the fertilizer’s nutrient mix to the results of a soil test.

Overseeding – Planting seeds now can help fill in bald spots and increase the thickness across the lawn, while planting cool weather grasses can keep your lawn green longer.

Leaf control – Leaves should be mulched into the soil when possible. Excess leaves should be raked up and removed, by adding them to a mulch pile or sending them to a yard waste facility. Leaving them in place can create a mat of wet organic material that will increase the chance of snow mold and choke the grass when it comes out of dormancy in the spring.

When Should I Stop Mowing?

The final mow can come at any time between early October and early December depending on your local climate, weather and the type of grass on your lawn. Warm season grasses will go into dormancy early into the fall, while cool season grasses will keep growing into early winter. Growth rates should slow down as soon as leaves start falling off of the trees. If there is an early frost, it should halt the growth of warm season grasses, but some cool season grasses may bounce back. Freezing aside, expect to mow your lawn for the last time once temperatures are consistently below 40°F (4-5°C.)

What Height should the Grass Be After I Mow?

The final cut should leave the grass at a height of two inches, regardless of variety. This provides enough ground coverage to resist freezing without trapping moisture that can encourage mold growth. Long grass can also bend, reducing light contact. This slows down photosynthesis, which can keep the grass from building up the sugar stores it needs to last through the winter.

As always, only one-third of the grass should be cut at a time. If you have a normally tall-cut grass like Kentucky Bluegrass that will take more than one cut to get to that height, wait at least a week between each mow. This shouldn’t be a challenge since growth rates at the end of the season should slow to a point that mowing is only needed every two to four weeks.

What Should I Do After the Last Mow?

Get your mower ready for storage: Instructions for storing your mower can be found in the owner’s manual, and we have guides for storing many of Honda’s mowers on this blog. It’s also a good time to address issues like worn blades and sticky cables so your mower will be ready to go in the spring.

Shut off the sprinklers and drain the water lines so they won’t burst in freezing temperatures.

Cover perennials in mulch after the first hard freeze, taking care not to cover the crown. The freeze will put the plant into hibernation, while the added dirt will shield it from winter weather.

Get Your Mower Ready for Winter

When you’re ready to put your mower in storage for the season, visit www.hondalawnparts.com. We have everything you need for your Honda mower and Honda-powered equipment from maintenance items to major components. Our site has original factory diagrams and descriptions built in, making it easy to identify what you need, and we can ship your order to any location in the U.S. or Canada.