Fall Lawn Care Guide

Fall Lawn Seeding and Planting

• Cool-Season Lawns: Fall is the perfect time for establishing and thickening turf through seeding, sodding, and patching bare spots. If you’re seeding your lawn, reduce the amount of fertilizer to avoid burning the seedlings.

• Warm-Season Lawns: If you don’t like the brown appearance of your dormant warm-season lawn, fall is a good time to overseed with annual ryegrass or other cool-season grass for winter color. Apply the seed about 2-4 weeks before your average date of the first frost.

Fall Lawn Weed Control

Fall is the ideal time to combat actively growing weeds with post-emergent herbicides. Weeds, like other plants, spend the fall drawing nutrients from their leaves into their roots for winter survival. The increased absorption means that your weed-control products will quickly be drawn into the roots for rapid results.

Other Fall Lawn Tasks

• Leaf Cleanup: If allowed to accumulate, leaves form a wet blanket that smothers your turf grass and invites disease. Keep leaves raked or picked up, and consider using them to start a compost pile. Small amounts of leaves can be mowed and mulched into your lawn.

• Mowing: Continue mowing as long as your lawn is growing. Mow newly seeded lawns as soon as they need it. Make sure your mower blades are sharp for the fall season and do a little mower maintenance before putting it away for the winter.

• Watering: The weather may be getting cooler, but your lawn still needs one inch of water per week as long as it’s growing. Newly planted grass seed will need watering every day or two until established.

• Grass alternatives: If you have areas of your lawn where grass refuses to grow, fall is a great time for planting and establishing groundcover.

Further Information

• How High to Mow Lawn for Final Cut in the Fall (article)
• Fertilizer Application (video)
• How to Eradicate Weeds in Lawns (article)