Caring for your grass year-round is essential if you want a healthy and flourishing lawn every year. Many of us think that after the last mow, the maintenance stops until next spring.
However, caring for your grass doesn’t stop completely after September. In the autumn and winter months, your lawn still requires some attention. We show you what needs doing year-round with your grass, so it remains as healthy as ever and flourishes throughout the growing season.
Spring
The combination of showers, rising ground temperatures, longer days and sunnier weather is the catalyst for grass to begin growing in spring. Along with it, are several practices you should implement to tend to your grass.
The first mow of the season
Before you begin your first mow of the year, make sure the timing is right. As a general rule of thumb, you should begin when the lawn first shows signs of growth, which is usually mid-March.
When growing, make sure you implement proper practices like mowing in the afternoon when the grass has had time to dry out in the spring sunshine. See our in-depth guide on how to properly execute your first mow for more.
Add compost or grass clippings
Being a source of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, compost is a great source of growth-boosting nutrients for your grass. Of course, you can buy your compost from your local garden centre, but it’s even better to make your own.
Applying some nutrients at this time of year gives your grass a healthy start when it needs it most. Simply scatter by hand a small amount over your lawn as you walk over it.
An alternative to composting is mulching grass clippings. The advantage of fertilising with grass clippings is that it’s very easy to do, especially with a mulching mower like the EGO LM1702E-SP cordless lawn mower.
Grass clippings are rich in nitrogen, and by mulching while you cut your grass, you are giving your lawn a vital boost of nutrients while also cutting your lawn. In other words, two jobs done in one go!
Summer
Summer is the most intensive month for lawn care, with regular mowing, feeding and watering. What makes it more intensive is that it’s many of the same jobs as in spring, except a lot more regularly.
Here are some tips for summer lawn care you can follow:
Regular mowing
Depending on the weather, you should be mowing your lawn once per week to prevent it from becoming overgrown.
You can choose to either mulch your grass clippings or collect them. Or maybe you want to do one in June and another in July. Whichever you choose, a benefit to EGO cordless lawn mowers is that they can easily be used to do both, especially EGO lawn tractors like the TR4200E lawn tractor.
Watering (if needed)
You may even need to water your lawn in the summer, particularly if there is a heatwave. Signs to look out for that your lawn needs watering include:
- A change in colour from a deep green to an off-yellow or washed-out colour.
- Dry, compacted soil along with cracks in the surface.
- Limp folded over or curled grass blades.
- An increase in weeds like docks throughout the lawn.
- A compacted thatch layer.
Repairing or re-seeding
If you notice bare patches of soil where there should be grass, you may need to reseed your lawn in these areas. If this is just a small area, this can be done by hand by breaking up the soil with a garden fork and scattering some grass seed over the area.
For larger areas, you can make it easier on yourself by using the EGO multi-tool with the cultivator attachment. For an in-depth guide on how to use the cultivator, see our blog on how to use the cultivator effectively.
Autumn
Lawn care in autumn is all about practices that ensure it has the healthiest start next growing season. The preparation starts with the last mow of the season, timing it right and not cutting the grass too short so it has some protection from frost over the winter and into spring.
Other autumnal lawn preparation jobs are:
- Routinely remove fallen leaves from the lawn. You can choose to make leaf mould out of these, or even throw them straight into your compost bin. Either way, they’re an amazing natural resource to have in the garden.
- Remove moss from the lawn. Moss isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if left unchecked it can soon take over and suppress your grass. To remove moss, you can use a rake and remove it by hand. Or you can use the EGO multi-tool along with the Bristle Brush Attachment
- Mulch your lawn with compost or grass clippings again. This will not only help to protect your lawn from frost, but it will also provide your lawn with essential nutrients that it will store and use again in the following spring.
Winter
While the grass is not growing during this time, there are still some jobs you should do to care for it.
Remove debris that is suppressing the grass
Any debris that is lying on the grass like snapped tree limbs should be removed. An ideal way to remove snapped tree limbs is to chop them up using a cordless chainsaw and remove the now more manageable logs.
Take care of weeds
Winter is a good time to treat any weeds before they start to grow and spread in the spring and summer months. Removing them now allows the soil to settle again and the lawn to repair itself before spring.
Look out for and deal with diseases
The relatively mild temperatures and damp conditions make this time of year perfect for some lawn diseases. You should keep an eye for them so you can deal with them before they take over. The most common winter lawn diseases to look out for are:
- Snow Mould - A result of using fertiliser that is too high in nitrogen, signs of this lawn disease include yellow or brown grass as well as white patches on the lawn, despite the temperatures not being cold enough for frost, snow or ice.
- Red Thread - Symptoms of red thread lawn disease include areas of “bleached” grass that will later turn to a pink hue. This particular lawn disease is a sign that it’s lacking nutrients. Try fertilising it with some organic compost or grass clippings.
Discover our range of battery lawn mowers
If there’s one tool that’s essential for year-round grass care, it's a cordless lawn mower. Visit our battery lawn mowers page and browse our range of cordless lawn mowers. All our lawn mowers come with a manual that details how you can properly maintain your lawn mower. You can also find and download a manual for your EGO tool from the bottom of any of our product pages.
EGO lawn mowers come with at least 5 years warranty for domestic use; however, this doesn’t cover faults caused by improper storage. All the more reason to keep your lawn mower maintained in accordance with our manuals.