Autumn is the time to be ensuring your lawn is healthy enough to get through the Winter without too much damage from frost, snow and cold winds.

The first step is to ensure there are enough nutrients in the soil to sustain the grass over the Winter period without causing a flush of soft growth which would be prone to disease infection and easily damaged. As the Summer has been very wet, flushing many of the essental nutrients through the soil, I am advising an application of  Autumn fertiliser with a low nitrogen and high pottassium content along with iron and trace elements.

The nitrogen in this supplement gives growth a little boost while the pottassium and trace elements help to produce a hardier grass plant more able to resist the ravages of Winter. The addition of iron kills the moss ready for removal and also helps to harden the grass. If you’re looking to buy something suitable for this application, our Autumn Rise fertiliser is a good mix for a lawn on a heavy soil. Alternatively, the Autumn Turf Care fertilizer suits a lawn on lighter sandy soils.

When the moss is dead it will turn brown, usually after ten to fourteen days, and should be raked out using a scarifier or a spring tine rake. By this time the grass should be growing well enough to fill in any gaps left by removing the moss, but any big bare patches should be repaired using a grass seed suitable for your situation mixed with a sand/soil topdressing.

Providing your lawn is on a fairly free draining soil with no other problems such as shade or heavy wear then the treatments above will give a good heathy lawn capable of withstanding whatever Winter throws at it. This is not always the case though, so I will follow up with an article on how to carry out full Autumn renovation programme to rectify or minimise any problems you may encounter. Keep an eye on the site in the coming weeks for this.

Remember, I still have my free eBook on Weeds, Pests and Diseases available for download just now. It’ll give you a good introduction to the problems that can beset your lawn and a lot of tips on how to solve them, including such things as fairy rings, leather jackets, dandilions and burrowing creatures. Click the link to download the free Weeds, Pests and Diseases eBook and please leave me some feedback on it, letting me know what you think, either using the Contact Lawns For You page or leave a comment on this post. I look forward to hearing from you!