Brown grass is normal behavior during winter.
You might have already started gathering firewood and pulling out your favorite winter garments, but have you winterized your lawn and landscape this season? Taking a few extra lawn care precautions will help ensure that your lawn survives even the harshest winter and is beautiful and vibrant when spring rolls around again.
Pre-Winter Lawn Care
Give your lawn a thorough fertilizing to replace lost nutrients before the first freeze. This will ensure that lawn remains fed all winter long. It’s also a good idea to mow your lawn short before winter. If your grass is left too long, it may end up laying over itself due to the pressure of snow cover. When this happens, air circulation around the plant is reduced, and snow mold can occur. This destruction early spring lawn disease is a frustrating problem you don’t want to deal with, and may cause large swaths of grass to weaken or die.
It is normal for grass blades to turn brown during the winter. Your grass needs to grow an entirely new plant from the crown up. This will take longer if there is a lot of brown grass still left from the previous year, as the old plants will need to fall away for new plants to show through and make your lawn green again.
Additional Winter Lawn Maintenance
It’s also important to cut back the brown tops off perennial plants that have gone dormant. Be sure to wait until they turn yellow or brown before cutting. You may even have to wait until spring to complete this task if your area receives a lot of snow cover. Also remember to bring in or cover up outdoor furniture that is no longer in use. You will want to bring in clay pots and other outdoor statuary as well in order to prevent them from breaking. The freeze-thaw cycle can cause items like this to crack.
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