4 Easy Fall Lawn Care Tips for Baton Rouge Homeowners

fall-lawn-care-tips

4 Easy Fall Lawn Care Tips for Baton Rouge Homeowners

Fall is up and coming, which means that it’s time to prepare your lawn for winter. Generally, our experts agree that it’s good to overseed in the fall to allow the grass time to grow strong roots in the winter and get ready for their growth spurt in the spring. Overseeding is an easy way to get rid of that off-season look by filling in bare spots and improving the density of the turf. Likewise, it allows your lawn to maintain a flawless color throughout the year. But first…

1. Inspecting your Lawn

inspecting-lawn

Photo: Flickr / kanonn

Every minute planning saves ten minutes doing. That said, two to three weeks in advance, you need to inspect your lawn for anything out of the ordinary, which means looking for grubs, determining how thick the thatch is, and checking the pH balance of the soil among other things. Don’t have time? Do a visual inspection by looking for bare spots, insects, weeds, and discoloration.

2. Spraying Herbicide

spraying-herbicide

Photo: Flickr / *Psyche Delia*

After inspecting your lawn, look for any weeds. Before you can overseed, you need to eliminate weed competition by spraying your favorite herbicide. Remember: The main advantage to overseeding now is that time would be on your side when it comes to growing a beautiful lawn unless you have weeds that could absorb the nutrients that your grass needs to grow throughout the winter.

3. Cutting the Grass Short

grass

Photo: Flickr / Natalie Barletta

Finally, just before overseeding, make sure you cut the grass as low as possible and bag your clippings. By cutting your grass short, you would allow the new seeds to absorb the sunlight along with the existing grass. However, remember to account for climate when cutting your lawn short to prevent overwatering on rainy days. Generally, in Baton Rouge, lawn care pros tend to leave an extra quarter inch (3.25” instead of 3”) to account for the heavy rain in Louisiana.

4. Overseeding your Lawn

lawn-seed

Photo: Flickr / David Duran

Finally, you get to overseed your lawn, which is an easy process if you’re willing to learn. The first step is choosing the best seeds for your area. Generally, people look for mixes that are 99.9% weed free for their area and climate. In Baton Rouge, a popular mix to overseed with is Premium Turf Type Tall Fescue, which provides a dense and consistent growth throughout the year. After cutting the grass short, use a spreader to create an even distribution of seeds throughout your lawn. Once you’re done, go ahead and water your lawn once or twice a day to give the new seeds a head start. Then, you can continue mowing your lawn normally when your seeds have reached an appropriate height. Otherwise, try to limit mowing to once or twice a week.

And just like that, you’re on your way to having a lush, green lawn come next spring!

Have questions about lawn care? Visit our Baton Rouge, LA lawn care page or share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Jake Hill

Jake Hill grew up working for his dad's landscaping company, and spent over 6 years covering the lawn care industry for LawnStarter. His expertise has been featured in The Huffington Post, Realtor.com, Homecity.com and more. Now he is founder and Editor in Chief of DebtHammer.org.