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Sigh

The Bermuda grass here in the front has pretty much gone dormant and fall is in full effect. Just because fall is here doesn't mean that the lawn game is completely over, we've still go things we've got to do. And that is exactly what today's video is all about. Some more fall lawn tips.

And the first tip that I want to go over, well... Keep on, keeping on with your mowing. But at the appropriate height. Especially for cool season grasses don't put away the mower yet. The grass will continue to grow all the way up until the first frost.

For most grasses, two and a half to three inches is a perfect height. So just keep mowing the lawn to keep it at that ideal height. Again, for all you folks up north with cool season lawns, if you let it get too long, it could mat down, especially with some snow fall, and it will be suciptable to some kind of fungus or disease like snow mold.

And on the opposite side of that if you cut it too short, that's just as bad. Scalping it down, you impede the lawns ability to with stand all the winter cold and dry air that comes through the winter months.

Also regular mowing through the fall time will help you suck up and mulch the leaves that fall from the trees at this time of the year. Which is a nice segue into the next tip I want to talk about.

Next tip, remove the leaves from the yard. And I already touched on this in the last video, it's by far one of my least favorite things to do.

Although it may look nice with a bunch of colorful leaves decorating the lawn and it's fun for the kids to run through and play in them, it is not good for the grass.

A blanket of leaves on the turf will block sunlight from getting down to the grass, and it will also trap moisture between the leaves and the turf, which can prove fatal later on.

Even after all the leaves have fallen off the trees and they're pretty bare, and you've done a good job of raking them off the turf, you want to make sure to pay attention to the corners of your lawn where wind might cause leaves to pile up in those areas. If you fail to do that, come spring time, the grass under that soggy, decaying pile of leaves, will be dead.

My mower did a pretty good job of sucking up what little leaves I had piled up, but it didn't get them all. So...

Obviously got to bag this up and get rid of it, and it won't be the last time I do this, this is just the beginning of what's to come. But, it's good to stay on top of this so that it doesn't get to out of control and too big of a chore to do.

Next tip to throw out there, loosen up the soil, or in other words, aerate if you haven't done so already. But just to go over it again, core aerating is going to punch holes into soil to keep it from getting compacted and it will also loosen up and break up the thatch layer which can block air, sun light and nutrients from getting down to the soil level to hep grass sprout up and thrive.

One thing to keep in mind is you don't want to put down your pre and post emergent and then run your core aerator. If you do that, you've just wasted your time and money by putting down that pre emergent, putting a protective barrier down, running the core aerator and breaking that protective barrier. Run the core aerator first, then apply your pre and post emergent.

If you don't do it in the fall time, you can do it in the spring, just keep in mind that you open yourself to more weed germination problems in the spring time.

Next fall lawn tip, add fertilizer to the yard.

Just as grass roots need water, they can also benefit from a shot of fertilizer, the sugars and nutrients that comes with it, to store up through the winter months so that when spring time rolls back around they can bounce back.

Those sugars and nutrients are produced by chlorophyll, which can be produced in abundance if there is enough nitrogen in the yard. So by putting down an application of fertilizer, you're insuring the grass, come spring time, has enough of those nutrients stored up to spring back to life.

And we've gone really in depth in this on our how to winterize your lawn episode. I'll link that in the description box below.

Next up in our fall lawn tips, overseed existing turf.

Not only will this fill in those thin or even bare spots, it will also help introduce some really resilient drought tolerant grasses into your existing turf.

Some of the main reasons you want to do this in the fall time is, well, the ground's still warm...

Moisture is plentiful...

Nights are much cooler...

And the sun is not as hot during the day time.

Now something you've got to keep in mind is you can't simply just broadcast the seeds over an existing lawn and expect them to take, get down into the soil, and thrive.. They need to make full contact with the soil, they need to be kept moist until they start to germinate and be well enough established before it gets too cold.

And once again, we've already covered this in a previous episode, how to overseed cool season grasses, I will link that one in the description box below as well.

And last fall lawn tip for this video, keep on schedule!

Everything that we've talked about in this series so far and in this video has to be done at the right time. Timing is everything.

For example, if you overseed too late, those seedlings will be too young and will not be able to survive through the winter time.

Fertilize too early and the grass will shoot up blades that will be way too young to survive the winter months when the cold dry air will absolutely hammer on it.

And on the opposite side of that if you fertilize too late, the grass will be too dormant, it won't absorb up those nutrients that you're trying to feed it, and thus when spring rolls back around it won't be able to bounce back and really thrive like you wanted it to.

So those are the main fall lawn tips, I wanted to throw your way. Keep them in mind. Keep on top of them, and your lawn game will be that much stronger come spring time.

I'm curious to know, what are some of the other fall lawn tips that I did not cover in this video. Make sure to leave those in the description box below and if you have any other questions, you can email them over to our customer service staff or pick up the phone and give us a call.

Main thing I got to do with my yard is just maintain what I have, keep the leaves raked up off it, keep it as clean and maintained as possible. And the other thing that I've decided to do; I was going to put it off, but I'm going to start tackling it; we're going to try and put a dent in the jungle.

But that's another video for another time, so if you're not already, make sure to subscribe to the channel by clicking this button, you can click this playlist to see all the videos in the Do My Own Lawn Care series, and click this playlist to see all the videos in the Do My Own Gardening series.

Hope this video was helpful. Hope you liked it. Hit the thumbs up if you did. And as always, thanks for watching!