Preparing your lawn for winter is an important task. If you’re working with a professional lawn care provider, then they should be helping to set you up for success in the coming winter months.

Two of the late fall/early winter lawn care tasks that we’re performing include the application of winterizer fertilizer and a limestone application.

In this article, we’ll explain how these services can help prepare your lawn for the winter.

What is a Lawn Winterizer?

Winterizer fertilizer for lawns is a late-season lawn fertilization application. This application will help to set the foundation for the coming winter.

Homeowners often think of fertilization in terms of the spring months but there are a couple of reasons why our winterizer application is actually one of the most important treatments in our program.

For one, this application has potassium, which strengthens root growth and development. This is important as your lawn heads into the winter season when it will face some harsh conditions.

This late-season application also helps the lawn to take in necessary nutrients and store them until the spring. We use a high-nitrogen fertilizer that will feed your lawn throughout the winter. This is important as you don’t want your lawn to be starving as it comes out of dormancy.

Winterizer also helps your lawn bounce back when the spring does roll around. Lawns that receive winterizer fertilizer tend to green-up faster.

When to Apply Winterizer Fertilizer?

As we’ve mentioned, this application is performed in the late fall or early winter. We’re typically wrapping up these treatments before the holidays.

Since this treatment is helping to set your lawn up for winter and early spring success, the key is to get it done before the lawn goes into dormancy.

It is one of those scenarios where your actions now will pay off in the long run. Winterizer will help your lawn maintain its winter hardiness while also performing better come spring.

What Makes Kingstowne Lawn & Landscape’s Winterizer Fertilizer Treatment Unique?

While a lot of companies offer a round of winterizer fertilizer, at Kingstowne Lawn & Landscape, our treatment also includes Winter Weed Prevention.

This is important as our region is known to deal with winter weeds due to our relatively mild climate. Homeowners get frustrated by early weed growth in February and March before the lawn care season officially starts.

Because it’s typically too cold for weed control products to work during those months, we decided to take a proactive approach and prevent these weeds in the first place.

By including pre-emergent products in our winterizer fertilizer application, we have been able to prevent many winter weeds on our clients’ lawns. That has been a HUGE success and homeowners appreciate that they don’t have to deal with early weeds that might otherwise pop up and spread.

The Importance of Adding Limestone

At Kingstowne Lawn & Landscape, we also perform our limestone application in the late fall or early winter, as part of our winterizing program.

Limestone is important to correct common soil pH problems here In Northern Virginia. It is common for the soil pH to fall lower than it should be.

On average, soil in our region is usually around 5.0 on the pH scale. But anything 5.5 or lower typically means your lawn is struggling to use the full potential of the fertilizers being applied to it.

When lawns are experiencing a soil pH issue, it can manifest as several key problems, including:

• Grass is thinner than it should be.
• The lawn is yellow or light green
• Weeds start to creep in

This can be corrected with a limestone application.

It’s important to recognize that not all limestone is created equal. The quality of the products out there can vary dramatically (and that can obviously impact your results). Many companies are utilizing the cheapest limestone they can buy in order to save some money.

At Kingstowne, we have invested in a high-quality limestone product that has added calcium, which helps to replenish the nutrients in your lawn. The product that we use is faster acting than other limestones. Whereas typical limestone can take four to six months to be absorbed, our product takes about eight weeks.

That speeds up the progress and the results.

It all comes back to the fact that we want your lawn to look and perform its best. That’s why we’re constantly analyzing the products that we’re using and making changes when necessary. We care about investing in high-quality products that are going to deliver the best results.

Other Ways to Prepare Your Lawn for Winter

In addition to making sure that you’re working with a lawn care company that uses winterizer fertilizer for lawns and limestone applications, there are a couple of steps that you can take on your own to prepare your lawn for the winter.

For one, we recommend that your final mow of the season be a little bit shorter than usual.

This is a preventative step that will hopefully help you avoid snow mold, which is a lawn fungus that can grow until snow. Longer lawns can become matted down, making the conditions more probable for snow mold growth.

Another important step that you can take is to make sure that all leaves and debris are cleared from the yard.

When leaves are left lying on the grass, they can lead to an incubation zone beneath the snow that will make fungus more likely to form. It’s important to pick up all leaves before they wind up buried in snow.

Leaves left behind on your property can also become a possible winter habitat for pests like rodents and even bugs that are looking for shelter. When you clear leaves, you also reduce the probability that pests might take up residence in your yard.

Partnering with Professional Lawn Care in Northern Virginia

While we’ve focused on preparing your lawn for the winter in this article, there are important lawn care services that should be performed all year round. That’s why it’s so helpful to partner with a pro. They’ll know what should be done (and when).

If you’re not already connected with a lawn care professional, the winter can be a great time to do this and make sure that you’re set up for next year.

While lawn care services aren’t needed while your lawn is in dormancy, early spring will be here before you know it!

With a lawn care company that has your back, you’ll have peace of mind that your lawn is getting everything that it needs and set up for the most possible success. That will be true no matter what the season.

If you want to know that your landscape is in good hands no matter what the season, request a consultation, get your customized plan, and relax as we give you the royal treatment.