The Lawn Mower Task To Do In September To Prepare For A Stunning Spring Lawn

By the end of summer, most people have settled into yard care routines that suit their lifestyle. Whether you're the kind of person who gets up early on Saturday to cut the grass or you'd rather pick up the phone and schedule your mowing through a service, you want what's best for your lawn so it stays healthy all year. Turf needs change quickly when the weather turns, and what your lawn needs in the summer looks a lot different than it does in the fall. With cooler temperatures approaching, Bryan Clayton, CEO of the nationwide lawn care service GreenPal, spoke exclusively to House Digest about what lawns need in September to prepare for spring.

Clayton says September is the time to lower your mower deck a little to prepare the lawn for fall aeration and overseeding. This is the best month of the year to aerate and reseed if you want thicker grass next spring, since temperatures start coming down from the summer highs. He cautions, "You've got a short window of opportunity to get your seed in the ground to germinate before winter comes and it gets too cold for it to sprout." The good news is that the steps Clayton recommends for caring for your lawn this fall are easy to follow, and you'll be rewarded with a stunning lawn next year.

With extreme heat in the middle of summer, Clayton recommends mowing your grass to a height of about 4 inches. But after the hottest part of the year is over and temperatures come down from the high 80s to the mid 70s, your lawn can handle a shorter cut. Throughout early and mid-fall, the key is to cut your grass about an inch shorter. As Clayton says, "You can get away with 3 inches tall and it looks nicer that way."

Keeping your grass shorter in the fall is a lawn mowing secret that also helps set your grass up for successful overseeding. According to Clayton, cutting your grass shorter is part of an overall effort at this time to remove the top layer of lawn and give grass seed an unobstructed path to the soil once you plant. That means getting rid of excess thatch and removing anything that's keeping the seed from getting into the dirt. Lowering the mower deck is a small adjustment to make, but as Clayton notes, September is the time to do it if you want to aerate and reseed your grass for a thick, healthy lawn in the spring.