Keeping your lawn healthy isn’t just a lawn maintenance task for the summer and spring months. Homeowners have to care for their grass throughout the year to keep it flourishing, attractive and green. This is especially true for homeowners in warm states like Florida. If you haven’t got the time or energy to winterize your yard, have a lawn care maintenance professional attend to the following winter lawn maintenance tasks:
- Remove all dead leaves, dead limbs and debris from the lawn. Keep it clear to allow for the unlikely event of ice and snow – it has been known to snow in sunny Florida. If objects on the grass are covered by snow, the lawn weakens and suffocates.
- Mow the lawn to the correct height, allowing it to grow 2 inches (or higher) in winter. St Augustine grass should especially be mowed higher – at around 3½ – 4 inches. Mowing will be needed less frequently in winter to keep the grass at the correct height.
- With the wet winters in Florida, your grass may not even need any extra water. Check for signs of folding or wilting in the blades – these are symptoms that watering is required. If the grass becomes very dry, water it once a month and saturate the ground until it seeps from the soil.
- Another winter lawn maintenance task is to look for pools of standing water a couple of days after heavy rain. This is a sign that the soil isn’t draining properly and mildew or mold may develop.
If you already use the services of a lawn care maintenance professional, he/she would have fertilized your lawn in early October to energize the grass and give it plenty of nutrition for the cold season.