Lawn Height

How tall you should keep your grass has always been a topic up for debate. Mainly because there isn’t a one size fits all answer. People have different preferences in how they want their lawn to look or function, and the height of the grass impacts both greatly. Taller lawns tend to look thicker and lusher, while lawns maintained at a lower height have a more crisp and neat appearance. It is also much easier to walk through lawns maintained at a lower height, so people with children playing in their lawn may want to take that into consideration.

Today though, I am going to primarily focus on lawn health. The best practices for your lawn to keep it healthy and looking good throughout the year. With cooler temperatures and eventually winter coming upon us, we need to keep in mind what affects that will have on our lawn. Harsh winters can wreak havoc on grass. When temperatures fall into the single digits or even when they stay in the teens for several days, we can see some winter-kill the following spring.

What is winter-kill? Winter-kill is when grass dies due to exposure to extreme cold temperatures. There isn’t a product you can spray or spread to prevent or cure it, but there are some best practices we can take to protect our lawns. Keep in mind though, these aren’t full proof. If the conditions are right, you may still have winter-kill.

A lot of times winter-kill will occur late winter/ early spring. Say for example, we have a warm week or two in late February. Then we have a week or two in March where it gets really cold and maybe even some ice or snow. Your lawn could have started to come out of dormancy during the warm period in February. Then the cold snap in March could do some serious damage. We recommend that you keep your grass height at least 3 inches until late March or early April. This tall layer of grass will act as an insulation layer and help protect your roots from the cold and some light traffic.

Another example of when we could see winter kill is when conditions in the fall aren’t suitable for grass as it is going into dormancy. We experienced this last year. We had a really wet fall, and it stayed wet all the way through the next April/May. When the ground is saturated, the roots can’t get air and much needed nutrients. So basically, the grass went into dormancy under stress from too much water and it came out of dormancy under stress from too much water. There isn’t much we can do to prevent this, and thankfully we didn’t see much winter-kill because of it. We did see some lawns that struggled in the early part of the year though.

The same thing could happen if we had a hot and dry fall. It seemed like for a while this might have been the case for us this year. September was one of the hottest months on record and rainfall was minimal. That puts grass under a lot of stress, which is really bad when you couple it with the fact that the grass is trying to store nutrients in the root system to prepare for dormancy. We apply a high potassium fertilizer in late summer (treatment L05) to help the grass get the nutrients it needs, but if it is dry that fertilizer won’t be able to get into the root system where we need it. It is a good idea to water your lawn during times of drought so that it doesn’t go into dormancy under a great deal of stress.

It is also important for the pH of your soil to be balanced. We recommend a pH of 6.5 to 7. If you aren’t sure what yours is, it is a good idea to have a soil test done so we can put down lime for you if it is needed.

We often think grass is invincible, and I will admit Bermuda grass is very resilient, but everything has its limits. Grass tends to be the most vulnerable as it is going into dormancy and when it’s coming out of dormancy. So, what we do in the spring and fall takes on great importance.

If you follow these best practices; 1. keep your lawn height high in the fall (approx. 3”), 2. put down a high potassium fertilizer in the late summer and water it in,  and 3. keep the pH of your soil in balance, you are doing everything you can to minimize your chances of having winter-kill. Just remember, you don’t want to “scalp” your lawn in the spring too early because we can get some pretty cold temperatures in March and you don’t want the roots exposed.

I hope you find this information useful and if there is anything you would like to see me write about, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Until next time,