Tips to Protect Your Lawn from Winter Damage

Winter presents unique challenges for lawns, particularly in regions that experience heavy snow and ice. With proper care and the right strategies, your lawn can remain healthy and vibrant throughout the colder months. On the contrary, neglecting lawn care in fall and winter can lead to winter damage. Winter damage can affect your lawn due to harsh winter weather, including extreme cold, ice formation, snow mold, desiccation, and other environmental factors. The damage can cause thinning turf, ice burn, brown patches, delayed recovery, and a decline in the health and appearance of your lawn. Also, it can make the grass more susceptible to pests and disease damage.

To prepare your grass for the upcoming colder months, take proactive measures before, during, and after winter storms. In this guide, we'll teach you practical steps to protect your lawn from frost and winter damage so that it returns to lushness and beauty come spring.

How Frost and Freeze Damage Your Lawn

Frost brings freezing temperatures, strong winds, snow, low rainfall, and little sunshine. This weather combination can hinder your lawn's growth and do serious damage to the blades and roots. This will also affect the condition of your lawn come spring. Freezing temperatures and frost can damage your soil, turf, and grass roots, as well as the health, resilience, and appearance of your lovely lawn.

Here are the causes of winter damage:

• Lowering the soil temperature
• Discoloring the grass blades
• Making grass blades weak, dry, and brittle
• Yellow, brown, or gray grass
• Stunting germination and growth
• Soil compaction, which suffocates grass
• High risk of fungal diseases like snow mold
• Water pooling when the snow and frost melts

8 Essential Ways to Protect Your Lawn from Frost and Maintain Its Beauty

Do not let heavy snow and frost compromise the health of your beautiful lawn. Follow these lawn care steps to prepare it for fall and winter and protect it from winter damage.

1. Aerate Your Lawn in Autumn

Aerate your lawn in late fall to reduce soil compaction and excessive thatch, which is common in winter. Aeration improves drainage and promotes root growth.

You can use a garden fork or an aerator to create small holes in the soil, allowing water, oxygen, and nutrients to reach deeper into the root zone. This makes your lawn more resilient to snow and ice.

2. Fertilize Your Lawn Before First Frost

Fertilize your lawn in late fall, before the first frost, to give your grass the essential nutrients it needs to absorb and store. Give a winter fertilizer with slow-release nitrogen to strengthen your grass' health and prepare it for dormancy. This should be your final fertilizing of the year. The nutrients will slowly be absorbed throughout the winter, helping the lawn survive the cold and promoting root health. In turn, this will encourage your lawn to grow green when warmer temperatures roll in.

Recommended Fertilizer

FERTI-MAXX Landscape Fertilizer is a high-performance growth blend for the entire landscape. This all-purpose fertilizer helps your grass and plants endure severe summer heat and cold winter conditions. It contains EZ-FLO's special, balanced blend of organic supplements that support nutrient delivery and retention.

This top-tier fertilizer is an excellent choice for landscapers seeking a vibrant lawn that can withstand seasonal stresses. It provides rapid green results at lower application rates than other comparative products.

3. Rake the Leaves and Remove Debris

Before the first frost, it is important to remove all the leaves and large piles of grass. Raking can also help reduce the brown patches in your yard and prevent certain parts of your lawn from becoming sun deprived. Any leaves and large debris left on the ground during winter will become wet, making it difficult for the grass to breathe. Fallen leaves, twigs, and other debris won't break down easily and can trap moisture under the snow, suffocating the lawn and creating a moist environment for winter diseases. Therefore, rake your lawn thoroughly before winter to reduce these risks.

4. Tackle Perennial Weeds

Late fall is an excellent time to get rid of perennial broadleaf weeds like clover, dandelions, and plantain. Weeds, like the turf, are striving to store up energy reserves to get through the winter. Remove all the pesky weeds in your lawn using a weeder or treat them with herbicide.

Use a topical herbicide to remove pest plants above ground and their stubborn roots below the ground. So, before winter strikes, take a walk around your yard and garden and remove all the weeds. This is also a great time to remove any sticks and debris from flowerbeds, beneath bushes, or buried in the grass.

5. Give a Final Mow

Before the first frost, mow your grass to its required winter height. Cool-season grasses, such as Kentucky Bluegrass, should be mowed to about 2 to 2.5 inches, whereas warm-season grasses, such as Bermuda grass, should be cut to 1.5 to 2 inches.

It is best to keep your grass between 2 and 2.5 inches tall in the fall and the final mow of the season. Mowing to a shorter height helps reduce fungal risks while maintaining adequate blade length to protect the grass crown.

6. Continue Watering

Although temperatures are cooling, your lawn still needs watering in precise amounts. The grass will continue to grow throughout autumn, so you should stick to a consistent watering schedule to sustain and encourage this growth.

Use a sprinkler system to water your grass, and a drip irrigation system is recommended to water shrubs and flower beds. Continue watering your yard with these automatic irrigation systems, as needed, until the ground starts freezing.

Important Note: Avoid overwatering your lawn in late fall. Excess soil moisture before frost can lead to snow mold. So, reduce your watering schedule as temperatures drop.

7. Manage Snow Accumulation

Once snowfall starts, it is recommended to manage its accumulation to prevent long-term damage to your lawn. Don't pile up large amounts of snow in one part of the lawn, since this excessive weight can cause soil compaction and suffocate the turf. If possible, spread the snow evenly or move it to other areas, like driveways or garden beds. Also, avoid using traditional rock salt to melt ice, as it can damage your soil and grass. Instead, you can choose pet-safe and lawn-safe ice melting products that contain calcium magnesium acetate or potassium chloride.

8. Prevent Soil Compaction

The weight of ice, snow, and foot traffic can compact the soil, damaging the grass crowns under snow, restricting root growth, and limiting water entry. Preventing soil compaction is essential for ensuring your lawn recovers quickly in the spring.

Create pathways for foot traffic in your lawn or place mats, stepping stones, or plants to protect the turf. Encourage your pets and family to avoid walking on the lawn unnecessarily during winter. Use visual markers or ropes to deter unnecessary traffic. Walking on moist snow-covered grass can lead to soil compaction.

Tips to Recover Your Lawn in Spring

Even with proper winter lawn care, some damage may still occur. But you can help your lawn recover quickly in spring and restore its health and beauty with these tips.

Remove Debris

Once all the snow has melted, rake off the dead grass and leaves, and clear your lawn of any remaining debris. This recovery step improves airflow to the soil and sunlight penetration.

Aerate and Dethatch the Lawn

This step is to prevent soil compaction. If you see compacted soil or a dense thatch layer, consider aerating and dethatching your grass in early spring. This promotes healthy root growth and increases nutrient absorption in soil.

Overseed Bare Areas

Inspect bare, thin, or damaged spots in your lawn and overseed them with grass seeds suitable for your area and grass type. Combine overseeding with soil amendments, such as compost, to boost germination.

Apply a Balanced Fertilizer

When the grass starts to grow, feed it with an organic, balanced fertilizer such as Ferti Maxx landscape to recover nutrients lost during winter dormancy. Apply fertilizers with a balanced combination of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for healthy growth.

Resume Watering

Water your lawn as needed with high efficiency lawn sprinklers. Check out soil moisture levels regularly to prevent overwatering in the early season.

The Bottom Line

Heavy snow, frost, and strong freezing winds can pose serious challenges to your lawn, but following these steps will help you keep it healthy during winter. With temperatures dropping and leaves changing color, it's time to prepare your lawn for the upcoming cold months and give it the care it needs to thrive year-round. With the right lawn care, good fertilizer, appropriate watering, mowing, and tools, you can protect your turf from snow mold, severe frost, compaction, and ice damage.

Explore our lawn irrigation products, high-quality lawn fertilizers, soil amendments, and more to help restore your lawn's health and enjoy a lush, green lawn when the warmer months return.