Although it is common to feel the urge to seed the lawn during spring weather, the host of the Lawn and Garden Journal says fall is actually a better time for this project.
Carla Hyrcyna says she prefers to wait until just before the first snowfall before she gets out the grass seed.
“We are eager to do it in the spring, but it's so beneficial to do it in the fall,” she says. “I'm talking about top dressing your lawn, or overseeding your lawn.”
Some people prefer to overseed their lawn as it can often help thicken the grass and choke out the weeds. Putting down some topsoil and then grass seed can help provide a nice lawn the following spring.
“I love using just peat moss myself,” Hyrcyna says. “A couple bales of peat moss, I bang them up across my lawn and I overseed the top of it, just before it snows.”
This is also a great time for laying sod, she adds.
If you are putting soil down, Hyrcyna advises a minimum of four inches of good grade, blended mix for underneath the sod.
You may want to sprinkle a little fertilizer on the top of that soil before you anchor on your sod on top. It's going to help you to anchor it, it’s still warm on there and you'll see a little bit of rooting happen,” she says. “And then again, boom! No muddiness in the winter. And in the spring, you've got a beautiful, green lawn.”
As the snow melts in spring, Hyrcyna says that moisture really gives the grass what it needs to grow quickly.
While you are working on the lawn this fall, you might notice that some trees are already bare while others have many leaves that seem anchored to the branches.
The term for this is "marcescence."
Hyrcyna says it is common for some leaves to stay on young branches throughout the winter months.
“They’re sometimes adding a little bit of a benefit to protecting the buds,” she explains. “You can see that, right? Where, if the leaves hang on a little bit tighter, it's like it's giving those new bud emergencies maybe a little bit of an insulating factor.”
It is common for trees to exhibit this characteristic when they are young. Trees lose that trait as they get older.
With snow expected to arrive in the area over the next few days, lawn and garden tools are expected to be swapped out for shovels and ice scrapers across much of Manitoba.