Winter lawn health tips

With winter now set in through the temperate zone of Victoria after a stunning autumn with plenty of colour comes the time when all those leaves have been down for as long as a month and are naturally breaking down, while this is just a natural process that will put nutrients back into the earth, it can also ruin our lawns very quickly.

Now to stop this from happening your rake is going to be your best friend preferably a wide leaf rake to make you work smarter not harder, In winter mowing takes a back seat as you only need to mow sometimes as little as once a month or every fortnight to maintain the desired length for your type of grass which is very important during the winter months as this can be another thing that is over looked. Now back to your best friend the rake, when the trees near your lawn start to drop the leaves which can take up to a month for all of them to fall off, you will have wanted to mow first as raking long wet grass makes your job much harder and by mowing and bagging the clippings you do pick up any leaves resting on top of the grass so two birds one stone right, now about a week later the tree will have dropped more leaves and this is your cue to bring the rake out and get all those leaves and if you have a compost area/bin put them in there as they will love it. for every week following get into a routine of mowing if needed and raking to keep your lawn clear of leaves and any debris that falls on to it.

This advice is great for a lot of different lawns as no matter if you have a great bulletproof lawn, if you overlook one thing such as neglecting leaves especially a lot of leaves on your lawn, it can go from good to bad quickly with weeds having an open field to spread into. Taking the time to correctly maintain your lawn will mean you give it every chance to thrive and possibly spread into that spot that is always bare (yes i know about that bare spot, drives me crazy too). Thanks for reading and have fun gardening.