7 winter yard work tips for maintaining a healthy lawn

Winter may mean less yard work than other seasons, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done if you want to maintain a healthy yard year-round. If you want to take care of your yard during the cooler months, there are a few things you should know. In this blog post, we’ll provide some of our favorite winter yard work tips that will help you continue to have a lawn you love.

1. Place steppingstones

Walking on your grass causes soil compaction. And since soil compaction can keep water and other nutrients from getting to your grass, walking on it can really impact the health of your lawn and inhibit root growth.

You can avoid walking on it quite as much by putting down 1X1 ft. pavers. These will allow you to walk to various parts of your yard without stepping on the grass. For instance, these steppingstones are useful if you want to access your HVAC machine or backyard shed without disturbing the soil. You should only need to dig a hole that’s 2-inches deep for each paver. 

2. Get up fallen leaves immediately

You don’t need to completely avoid walking on your grass. After all, you’ll want to walk on your turf in order to get up leaves soon after they fall–even if you do this multiple times throughout the winter. Because if leaves sit on your turf, they’ll kill your grass. Here are some reasons why:

• Excess moisture can get trapped under the leaves. 
• Sunlight is blocked from reaching the turf.

So, do it as they come down instead of waiting until all the leaves are off the trees. To help you stay on top of this, we suggest planning to get up leaves every two weeks. 

It may be tempting to do all your leaf cleanup at one time at the end of winter, but doing so will damage your lawn. 

3. Use a blower instead of a rake

When you get up your leaves, we suggest using a blower instead of a rake to make leaf piles. This is because raking can damage your turf. As lawn service pros, we try not to disturb the soil unless it needs to be disturbed. That’s why we only use rakes when it’s time to get the leaf piles into bags for pickup. 

4. Don’t mulch in bulk

Going over your entire yard with your lawn mower once every last leaf has fallen might seem like a simple way to do things. But by doing so, you turn the leaves into a thick layer of mulch across your yard. This in turn will block out sunlight and prevent water and other nutrients from getting to your grass (i.e., it will kill your turf). That’s why, as lawn care professionals, we never mulch in bulk.

Instead, only use your mower to mulch small quantities of leaves. That way, you don’t damage your lawn.

5. Put some fresh bedding material out after all the leaves have fallen

Rather than pick leaves out of your beds throughout the winter, go ahead and refresh them at the end of the season. Note: You can refer to our previous blog post on the best ways to maintain your plant beds.

6. Winterize your irrigation system

Winterizing your irrigation system involves the following:

• Getting out all of the water from your irrigation tubes and drip lines
• Disconnecting every exterior hose 
• Using insulated covers over every exterior faucet

By using insulated faucet covers and hose bib covers, you keep your outdoor faucets from freezing. This is important, because if an outdoor faucet freezes, it could potentially lead to a costly plumber’s bill. 

Also, take any hoses inside. You’re probably going to have some water trapped in those hoses. And if the rubber freezes and unfreezes, it will make your hose deteriorate faster. 

We recommend doing this before the weather dips into freezing temperatures. A lot of people will wait until a winter storm is about to arrive before winterizing their irrigation system, but it’s better to be proactive about it. 

7. Avoid using fertilizer with nitrogen on your plants and grass

Make sure you don’t put out a fertilizer with nitrogen on your plants. Nitrogen is like the espresso of fertilizers–it stimulates growth. But you don’t want to accelerate plant growth during the winter.

Plants become dormant for a reason. That’s because they’re about to go through a hard winter, and there are going to be freezing conditions. If you accelerate the growth of your plants, then there are more areas on the plants that can freeze. And frozen plants are likely to die.

The same is true for your grass–avoid putting nitrogen on them. Just let the grass go dormant during the winter months, so it can protect itself from freezing temperatures. You can still put out a pre-emergent fertilizer on your plants and grass, just make sure it doesn’t have a lot of nitrogen in it.

Wrapping up

Keep these winter yard work tips in mind as you care for your lawn. Remember to enjoy the process of maintaining your yard–some hard work outdoors can be great for your mind and body. And feel free to get your kids involved in some of these tasks.

If you want even more help with your yard, check out some of our other blog posts. Or hire a lawn and landscape pro using our platform. You can use it right on this site or download it on your iOS or Android device. When you use our free platform, you can request multiple quotes from local pros, change your lawn care services, and much more! It provides a simple solution for managing your lawn care needs.