10 Fall Lawn Care Maintenance Tips You Need to Know

Aerate Lawn

After a year of use, the lawn’s soil becomes heavily compacted. Rain, snow, leaves, and foot traffic contribute to this. The problem is pronounced if the soil is heavy in clay rather than being lighter and sandy. Tight soil doesn’t allow air and water to penetrate.

Aeration opens the soil by adding holes every few inches across the lawn. Aerate the lawn either with core or spike methods:

• Core aeration: A machine or hand tool removes soil plugs and drops them on the lawn. This method opens generously sized holes and doesn’t disturb the surrounding soil.
• Spike aeration: Spikes from a hand tool or machine force holes into the ground. This method doesn’t leave unsightly cores on the grass, but the soil is compacted sideways.

Remove Thatch

Thatch is the spongey layer of decaying material between the grass and the soil. Some thatch is important as it insulates against upcoming temperature spikes and is also a natural protectant against weed seeds.

But too much thatch slows or prevents air, water, and nutrients from reaching the soil. In the spring, your lawn will be less vigorous and green. Dethach your lawn in early fall either by hand or mechanically:

• By hand: Use a thatch rake with sharp, widely spaced tines to pull up the thatch without disturbing the grass.
• With a machine: Run an electric or gas-powered dethatcher ($150 to $250) across the lawn to remove and collect thatch in the attached collection bag.

Fertilize Lawn

Your lawn needs to be fertilized after surviving summer’s heat and peak sunlight. Fall is the best time to fertilize the lawn because conditions are cool and moist. Fertilizing when it’s hot and dry can burn the lawn beyond repair.

Fertilize a lawn two or three times a year. Fall is the last fertilization in the cycle before winter sets in. Aim to fertilize your lawn in late fall—October or November, in some areas.

The best fertilizer spreader will hold just enough fertilizer for your lawn but isn’t so large that it will groove into your lawn or damage plants.

Overseed Lawn

As your lawn ages, it strains harder to let viable sprouts grow. Weeds crowd out desirable grass sprouts, eventually creating a yard of weeds instead of lush grass. Overseeding is the solution. 

Fall is the best time to overseed because the weather is temperate. Also, you’re already doing other procedures, like aeration, that work in concert with overseeding. Be sure to overseed a month before the first frost.

To overseed your lawn, first dethatch and aerate. Core aeration is preferable because it creates large holes for the seeds. Then, load the fertilizer spreader with grass seed and cover the lawn at the rate specified on the lawn seed package.

Control Fungus

Brown, dead patches in your lawn can be caused by underwatering or chemicals. But often, the culprit is brown patch fungus, or Rhizoctonia solani. The fungus hits dry-season grasses like St. Augustine grass and Zoysia the hardest, but cool-season grasses can also be affected.

Since July and August are fertile months for brown patch fungus, fall is the time to step in and control it. Introducing more air and water to the grass usually fixes the problem. Dethatch and aerate the lawn. Try these methods before applying fungicides.

Manage Weeds

Weeds mar your lawn’s good looks. But worse than that, they can take over the lawn after enough time. Fall’s mild climate is favorable for lawns, but also for weeds.

Before applying herbicides, pull as many weeds as possible by hand. A broad range of weeding tools helps you pull weeds from the taproot, and some allow you to do so without squatting down.

Use a weed killer to treat widespread weed problems or for larger lawns. The best weed killers for lawns are selective: they kill certain weeds but spare the turf.

Manage Pests

Insects damage a lawn in two ways. One, they directly harm the lawn, creating irregular patches that are brown, dry, or wilted. Two, they provide a rich supply of food for other animals like birds and raccoons to feed on.

• Lawn grubs: Cool-season grasses like bluegrass and ryegrass brown are affected by lawn grubs. To cure the problem, irrigate, fertilize, and overseed the lawn. Or use an insecticide like Dylox or Merit.
• Chinch bugs: Chinch bugs mainly affect warm-season grasses like St. Augustine grass. Water and dethatch the lawn to control chinch bugs. 
• Fall armyworms: These bugs damage all types of grasses by nibbling small, irregular patches that can eventually extend to larger sections. Dethatch the lawn, drain the lawn to eliminate wet spots, and overseed the lawn.

Lay Sod

To repair large sections of missing lawn or establish a new lawn, seeding in one way to go. However, establishing a lawn from seed is difficult unless all conditions are right. Rolling out sod ensures a better rate of success, and weeds are less common.

Sod is pre-grown grass—the topmost layer—that comes in rolls or squares. Once you lay out the sod, the sections knit together from side to side, and the roots grow downward.

Fall is an ideal time to lay sod. Schedule the project to end no later than the end of October. Installing the sod too late in fall doesn’t give the sod’s roots enough time to grow into the soil before the first freezes come.