Planning your spring lawn care should be an integral part of your early gardening strategy in 2023, having put so much effort into protecting your grass during the brutal winter months.

It’s easy for the cold weather to weaken your lawn to the point where mold, grass diseases, and other issues can set in and make it very difficult for your grass to bounce back. Luckily, plenty of easy-to-follow tips can give you the best chance of preserving your yard during the coldest times of the year and avoiding making harmful mistakes during the early months of spring.

Planning Your Spring Lawn Care

One tip we should follow every year involves holding back on some of the usual outside chores. Lawns in Michigan typically need some time to ease into the spring, which means avoiding using a mower in March.

While a warmer-than-usual February can make your grass look greener, it doesn’t mean it’s the right time to start cutting. There’s a good chance that it’s either still dormant or just beginning to grow. Cutting your grass too early will stress it out and make it put all its energy into growing blades rather than into its roots. Without the much-needed energy supplied by the sun, your lawn could go into survival mode, leaving it in a weakened state.

Walking over your lawn can also help compact soil, which is more likely to happen when the ground is soggy. Compacted soil makes it harder for your yard to find the essential nutrient supplies it needs to grow and makes for another good reason to stay off it until it’s ready to bounce back.

Another good tip for spring is to start mowing your lawn when the temperatures have warmed up enough so your soil is warm and dried out. But even then, take precautions not to trim too low, as this could expose the root system and leave it open to further damage.

Other areas to cover when working on your spring lawn care plans include the following ideas:

Check Your Lawn

Your yard has been through a cold winter, and the Michigan climate is not known for playing nice. The first thing you should do is check your lawn and determine what areas need repair. This can include some light raking, which will help remove debris, buildups of thatch, and leftover wet leaves and prevent molds and fungi from forming on your lawn.

Repair Your Lawn

Even with the best prep, you can be left having to deal with problems created by the harsh conditions in Michigan. As noted above, compacted soil can stress out your grass; luckily, there are a few things to do if you spot this problem. A professional aeration service can remove soil plugs from your turf, helping your lawn’s root system expand and grow.

Prepare Your Lawn

Like every year, weeds will be back and start their life cycle by germinating from the seed that survived the colder months; applying a pre-emergent will stop this process and provide more breathing room for your lawn. 

What Can You Do Now To Protect Your Lawn For Winter?

Before spring arrives, you can still do plenty to help your lawn bounce back in the best way possible. To get started, you can help your lawn by adding more seed during late fall, giving it the best chance to grow back thick and robust. Even when taking on this positive task, you must avoid seeding with more than 5% inert ingredients (weed seeds).

Dethatching is something you should do during the spring, but starting the process early can hurt your lawn, as it requires a layer of thatch to help keep in moisture and provide nutrients as the thatch layer decomposes. While you might be ready to take a break from the usual cycle of tasks involved in lawn upkeep, you should not skip these core tasks:

• Remove leaves.
• Mow the lawn before the snow arrives.
• Fertilize before freezing weather moves in.

Another big tip for seeing the winter months as unscathed as possible is avoiding as much traffic across your lawn as possible. A dormant lawn needs all the help it can get, and you can provide assistance by not putting it under any more pressure by wearing a path through it.

Let Lush Lawn Help With Your Lawn Needs 

We can help with your essential lawn decisions and determine how best to revitalize your yard in the Spring. To get a free estimate, contact Lush Lawn today.