People try all sorts of things to boost their lawns during the autumn and winter months, with some even taking to sprinkling salt on their grass. However, to keep your grass healthy and gorgeous throughout the chillier months, there’s something you should be doing now to aid success.
According to a gardening expert, people should complete a simple task now to keep lawns “perfect” during the colder months. While your time spent in the garden may be more limited now, there are still a few jobs you can do, especially if you want your lawn to continue thriving as the weather turns colder.
Ish, known as gardening.with.ish on TikTok, explained what people need to do in a candid video. It comes after gardeners were told an easy method to help remove weeds from lawns without using harsh chemicals.
In the clip, Ish said: “In order to get a perfect lawn, you’ve got to focus on the ground beneath, because a good lawn needs a decent airflow and drainage. If it’s waterlogged and compressed, the roots don’t do very well and, as a result, you don’t get good grass.
“So, you can introduce air into the soil and drainage by going at it continuously with a fork, which is quite labour intensive, or get something like this, which is a scarifier, which has these fantastic rotating blades, which will introduce all that airflow and drainage into the soil and [it] sets you up for overseeding too.”
When you use a scarifier, Ish said you may find chunks of grass come out at the top. While this can feel daunting at first, he said it’s actually useful.
By thinning out the grass, he says you’re actually doing some good and, once it’s been cleaned up, you’re ready for the next step. He added: “Now, in the spring and summer, I focus on overseeding after I’ve aerated and six weeks later [I] will start to fertilise but, in the autumn and winter, I change it up a little bit.
“Autumn feed is completely different to what you get in a summer feed, and this autumn feed here is higher in phosphorus, which means it focuses on root development below as opposed to high nitrogen, which will focus on the growth. High nitrogen feeds actually burn lawn seed, especially if it’s mixed together, so you need a bit of time in between.
“Whereas, what I like to do, is evenly spread this lawn feed, water it in really well and then focus on overseeding.”
He noted he uses a hard-wearing, multi-grass seed, which means it works in shaded areas too. This allegedly works to make his lawn “perfect” without having to put in too much effort.
If you’re pleased with how your lawn looks after you’ve scarified, Ish said you don’t need to overseed at all. But, if you want to, it’s as simple as scattering the seeds on the grass.
Ish said the seeds will fall into the cracks he’s made with his scarifier, and germinate within a week or two. This will thicken out, and help to give him a “perfect” lawn.
Though he’ll carry on feeding it in the spring, he confirmed there’s no need to do anything else until then. It’s that simple to keep your lawn in amazing condition throughout the colder months.
The video has been viewed hundreds of times since it was shared, and several were thrilled with the advice. It seems many Brits are keen to keep their lawns in amazing condition this winter.
One person said: “This is top tier advice, as always.” Another wrote: “I aerated, scarified and overseeded last week. I wish I had seen this video sooner.”