Fall Lawn Care – Seeding and Feeding

Don’t fall short – now is the best time to seed and feed your lawn! Starting now will help your lawn come back healthier and even more beautiful next spring.

Seeding your lawn:

1. Mow and rake the lawn and apply a starter fertilizer. Johnson’s recommends Scotts Starter Fertilizer.

2. Johnson’s recommends a high quality tall fescue seed mix. Tall fescues will grow in a very wide range of sun exposures and soils. Johnson’s carries our own blends of grass seed formulated for the Washington Metropolitan area.

3. Cover the reseeded area with Greenview Seed Accelerator or DeWitt Straw TakSack. This is a clean and efficient way to keep the seed moist and help it germinate faster. Straw TackSak is designed to stop erosion and promote germination.

4. Keep the area moist, checking it in the morning and afternoon. Do not allow the seeded area to dry out while the seed is germinating. Johnson’s has a complete line of hoses, sprinklers, and timers to help you with this task.

Feeding your lawn:

1. When you get to your final mowing of the year, mow the lawn just a bit shorter than usual.

2. “Sweeten” the soil in mid-fall with pelletized lime.

3. Rake up leaves or use a mulching mower to shred them. You don’t want leaves smothering your lawn during the winter, but shredding leaves turns them into a nourishing compost.

4. Use a high quality, slow feeding, organic lawn food specially formulated for this time of year. We recommend Espoma Fall Winterizer – it contains extra potash to help your grass survive the winter.

5. Look for bare spots in your lawn and reseed. Be sure to allow enough time for the seed to establish before winter arrives. To reseed small areas and repair bare spots, we recommend using Scotts EZ Seed for tall fescue lawns.

6. Pull all those pesky weeds.

7. Irrigate as needed, but keep in mind that you’ll need less water for your lawn in fall.

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Find more Lawn Care information on our Tips & Info page.

National Rose Month – Vol. 2/4 – Watering and Fertilizing

Watering: Under normal conditions, roses need an inch of water a week. Sandy soil dries out more quickly than a clay or loam and thus needs more frequent watering, perhaps every 5 days instead of once a week. Adding organic matter, such as Leaf Gro, to a sandy soil can help it hold moisture so that watering is not needed as frequently. It is important to water deeply (12 to 18 inches) but as infrequently as possible to encourage deep roots. Roses with deep roots will be stronger, healthier, and more drought resistant than those with shallow roots. Water early in the day so that the leaves do not stay wet throughout the night, as this fosters disease, especially if you are using an overhead watering system rather than a drip system.