Louisville summers are typically pretty warm and humid, and this year hasn’t been much different. The area normally escapes anything usually considered “extreme” heat, which naturally means Louisville lawns and flowerbeds are exploding with life. If aiming for a fall sale, gardeners should start topping up yardwork well into the fall. In this piece, we’ll look at the most important late-summer lawn tune-up tips to have your yard become the envy of the neighborhood.
Late-Summer Lawn Tips
Thankfully, even if it’s been left a little late to give one’s lawn much intensive TLC, there are still things people can do in late summer that will pay off handsomely come early fall. Here’s a breakdown of some diagnostics, small tweaks, preparation tips, and shortcuts they can take to get your late-summer lawn looking great.
Diagnose the Damage: Summer’s Impact on Turf Health
Even though a typical Louisville summer might not scorch lawns, homeowners should still give it a good look-over to ensure there are no deeper issues that could lead to problems over the coming months.
Typical concerns include:
- Discolored grass: which can be a sign of drought stress due to intensive heat. As mentioned, arid summers are unlikely in Louisville, but discolored tips could mean grass has suffered in the heat. It’s therefore important for gardeners to look and aerate soil and water deeply heading into fall. At worst, a lawn may have a disease that needs immediate care.
- Flat patches: otherwise known as ghost patches, which are so-called because they look like ghostly spots left behind after walking! A healthy lawn should usually bounce back underfoot. Again, this is usually a sign of heat stress or drought.
- Wilting: which is typically a bad sign that there’s deeper disease in a lawn that needs to be treated.
- Sinking centers: where a lawn appears to sink towards the middle – this is usually a sign that it’s been damaged by a disease.
Getting rid of lawn disease contracted during the summer isn’t always straightforward. Homeowners should concentrate on reducing the number of people crossing the grass, treating it with fungicides, and watering it long but infrequently. That way, roots will strengthen and start to fight back against deeper issues.
Small Tweaks That Go a Long Way
Disease and damage aside, there are plenty of small tweaks homeowners can make to a yard care routine to prepare a lawn for fall. Here’s a short checklist:
- Raking leaves: This is a pretty obvious job that some might already be on top of, but all lawns will thank gardeners for getting anything dead and fallen off the surface while summer still has time to go. They’ll be falling even faster by early fall, so it’s wise for gardeners to rake it all up and put it towards mulch.
- Start mulching: Many gardeners advise investing in a good mulching mower before fall and put clippings to good use. Spreading mulch around the garden for fall is generally easier once hot weather is out of the way, and when there’s more space after perennials have gone.
- Keep aerating: Having mentioned the benefits of aerating briefly, many sellers note that making a few small holes in the garden can work wonders for letting nutrients and water find their way better to where they need to go.
- Start weeding: It’s tempting for many people to leave weeding until spring, but they should start in the late summer and early fall. Doing so is great for them to get ahead of weeds that are likely to take hold in the spring.
- Keep mowing: Again, it’s tempting for people to assume that, by late summer, most can safely leave lawns to their own devices. However, people who keep to a good mowing schedule keep it short enough to avoid certain mold conditions. Experts generally say “keep mowing until it stops growing”.
Prepare the Lawn for Fall Recovery
An important item on our late-summer lawn tips is preparing it so that it can recover. This means following the points raised above plus some tried-and-tested protective measures. These include:
- Keeping grass reasonably short: Back to mowing again, some experts believe keeping grass specifically no lower than three inches tall is ideal for allowing blades to photosynthesize and to prevent matting.
- Measuring watering: Again, it’s wise for homeowners to be less frequent but more intensive about a watering schedule, and to go a step even further by actually measuring how much a lawn has to drink! At least an inch, weekly, is enough to water the lawn so it weathers the fall.
- Overseeding: Overseeding might sound risky to some, but gardeners report that thanks to aeration, there will be plenty more opportunities for seeds to take shape in the soil and germinate heading into fall.
- Adding nitrogen: It’s probably not advisable for anyone to start fertilizing a lawn with extra nitrogen just yet, but many green-fingered people will have a good supply of fertilizer in place just in case. Experts advise adding extra nitrogen as early fall approaches and certainly before the ground freezes so it can retain color and strength.
Related: The Big 5 Lawn Care Tips for Summer
Closing: The Weekend Tune-Up Mindset
To transform or at least maintain a great-looking lawn as part of a fall home sale, homeowners always need to be smart about scheduling. Successful sellers recommend following a “weekend tune-up mindset” – that is, giving a few hours every weekend to tick off checks, measures, and tips listed in this guide.
For example, there’s no need for anyone to worry about watering every day heading into fall – they should delegate this to a weekend checklist. Not only will gardens be grateful – buyers will likely be impressed with the added visual appeal, too.
