Fall is here! Now is the best time to care for your lawn and prepare for next spring.

As the days become shorter and cooler, now is the very best time to rebuild a lawn or establish a new one. Grass is a cool weather plant and the warm days and cool evenings brings new life to a stressed out lawn from a hot and humid summer. Rain Rich has a great program for getting your lawn back into great shape and is the same treatment that is used by many Long Island golf courses and athletic fields.

Here are 10 tips for improving your lawn this fall:

core aeration

  1. Test your soil for pH and for nutrients. Long Island soils are very acidic which is not good for lawns. Too acidic a soil and grass plants cannot absorb fertilizer.
  2. Lime your lawn. We recommend that lime be applied 2 -3 times per year until pH is in the 6.2-7.0 range.
  3. Core aerate your lawn. Removing plugs from your lawn relieves compaction and opens soil to accept water, fertilizer and air.
  4. Top dress with compost. Compost has organic matter, beneficial bacteria and fungi.
  5. Top dress with topsoil. Fill in uneven areas with a quality loamy soil.
  6. Fertilize with a quality brand slow release fertilizer. Consider fertigation as an organic and natural approach with little or no waste.
  7. Apply a quality blended seed. Consider sunny areas vs. shady areas. Hard clay soils vs. sandy loam soils. A preferred blend consists of blue grass, rye and fescue.
  8. Proper programming of irrigation controllers are critical to bring life to new seed and reestablishing your tired beat up lawn from the summer. Watering several times per day for short durations is best to increase germination rate of new seed.  It is important to keep seed moist until germination.
  9. Mow your lawn with a sharp blade, at a 3” height, and at least once per week.
  10.  Finally, keep leaves and debris off new grass. Sunlight is critical and wet leaves lying on top of new grass seedlings will cause damage.

The Rain Rich Lawn Care Program is customized to your specific property and guaranteed to your satisfaction. Rain Rich can provide all or part of the program- you decide. We recommend an organic approach for long term benefit and to care for our environment. For a free analysis and quote, please click here or feel free to call us at (631)-423-2211.

Voted one of the top 100 lawn sprinkler companies in the United States by the National Irrigation Association, Rain Rich has served Long Island for over 36 years with prompt, courteous, and expert service.

Happy Fall!