Jennifer Schultz Nelson: Lawns need TLC in early fall – Herald & Review

Believe it or not, late summer and early fall are the best time of year to give your lawn a little TLC.

Personally, caring for turf grass is not my favorite gardening activity by far. I'd much rather work on my flower or vegetable gardens. But we have some problem areas this year that are beginning to bother even me. So that says a lot.

The grasses typically seen in yards in our area are cool season grasses, like Kentucky bluegrasses, perennial ryegrasses, and fescues. These grasses prefer cool spring and fall temperatures, and turn brown and go dormant during the heat of the summer if not watered.

Sometimes you see lawns planted in warm season grasses, like Zoysia. These grasses do their best growing in the heat of the summer and are brown and dormant in the spring and fall.

When a friend moved to St. Louis a few years ago, she frantically texted me pictures of her lawn that spring, worried something was wrong since it was brown and looked dead as a door nail. It was just Zoysia grass, sitting dormant in the cool spring weather as it was supposed to do. Once the summer heat set in, her Zoysia grass came back to life.

Most lawns in Central Illinois are planted in cool season grasses. Late summer and early fall are the best times to start a new lawn in our area because not only do the cooler fall temperatures encourage grass growth; the soil is thoroughly warmed up.

While we all look forward to the green blades of grass that signal spring is here, the spring air warms a lot quicker than the soil. Even if the temperature outside is perfect for grass seed to germinate, grass seed planted in the cold soil will just sit there. The longer that seed lies in the cold, and often wet, soil, it is more likely to rot than germinate. But in fall, soil and air temperatures are perfect for seed germination.

Whether you are starting a new lawn or over-seeding an existing lawn to fill in some thin or bare spots, it is critical that the grass seed has good soil contact. A common misconception is that you just need to scatter seed and call it good. If youre scattering your seed on top of existing lawn, its highly likely that the seed will just sit on top of the grass or thatch without touching the actual soil. Without soil contact, the seed will not germinate. At least use a garden rake to scratch the seed into the soil to about a -inch depth after broadcasting seed.

Besides soil contact, grass seed needs consistent moisture to germinate. You may need to water a seeded area multiple times a day depending on the weather. Keep the top two inches of soil moist but not muddy after seeding to encourage rapid germination.

Consider renting a slit seeder, especially if you are planting grass seed over a large area, whether a new or overseeded lawn. This machine makes little cuts in the soil and drops grass seed directly into these slits. After several failed attempts to broadcast seed to establish part of our lawn, my husband finally rented a slit seeder. It was a night and day difference. We finally had grass growing in that part of the yard! Good soil contact makes all the difference.

Something we do every fall is lawn aeration. Aerating, or circulating air through your lawn loosens up compacted soil, and is an effective way to break down thatch. Compaction is one of those lawn problems that creeps upit tends to get worse slowly over time. If the high-traffic areas of your lawn tend to grow nothing but flat, ground-hugging weeds like spurge, you may have issues with compaction. We have a high-traffic area in our yard that is compacted and wearing thin. We need to aerate and reseed it before weeds move in worse than they have already.

Please ignore the aerating devices out there that are just spikes that stick into the ground. They don't help and may make compaction a little worse since they are compacting the soil around each spike as they penetrate the soil.

The best way to aerate your lawn is by using the specialized machine that removes plugs of turf and soil from the lawn and deposits them on the surface. Actual removal of a plug is crucial for breaking down thatch.

Thatch includes all the dead stems, roots and nodes of turf grass that do not break down readily. Bringing some soil to the surface by way of aeration plugs exposes the thatch to microbes in the soil that help decompose the thatch.

A common homeowner myth is that leaving grass clippings on your lawn will cause thatch. This is simply not true. Clippings are 75 to 85 percent water and decompose readily.

You dont need to declare war on all thatch though. Its beneficial to have a small layer of thatch less than -inch thick. A thin layer of mulch protects your lawn from rapid changes in temperature and moisture. It also gives your lawn a bit of cushion and springiness for sports and other recreation.

The major cause of excessive thatch in most cases is over-fertilizing. Encouraging too much top growth of turf creates a situation where the plant cannot support all that green growth, and it dies. Then the homeowner puts on more fertilizer because they think the lawn is not as plush and green as it should be, and the cycle begins again. The dead plant parts create thatch.

Thatch can be a serious problem because it may get thick enough to keep the lawns roots from reaching the soil. If your lawns roots arent in good contact with soil, your lawn will tend to dry out very quickly since it cannot access deeper soil moisture and will be very weak as a result.

Applying a fall fertilizer formula as one of the last lawn projects of the year in November or so is one of the best things you can do for your lawn. It helps the turf recover from a stressful summer, and a stress-free plant is less likely to succumb to disease and winter weather. Fall fertilization encourages turf root growth; turf with a well-developed root system will be well-equipped to survive the summer heat and drought in the next growing season.

Jennifer Schultz Nelson shares practical ideas and information to bring out the gardener in everyone in her blog at http://www.groundedandgrowing.co.

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Jennifer Schultz Nelson: Lawns need TLC in early fall - Herald & Review