Winter Lawn Tips

As you know, lawns in Colorado go dormant for the winter. Here are a few tips on what you can do to get ready:

• Get the lawn as clean as possible. Excess leaves and debris can cause long term problems including disease and smoothing of grass. A heavy covering of leaves does not protect your lawn. Instead, once it snows those leaves trap moisture and prevent the lawn from being able to breathe.
• Do not change the last few lawn mowing levels, and keep mowing until the grass is no longer growing. Leaving the grass too long over the winter can cause the same kind of problems as leaves on the lawn.
• Heavy traffic should be kept to a minimum as much as possible. The wear and tear on dormant grass from heavy traffic can cause long term damage, and may prevent those areas from greening up in the spring.
• Winter weather in Colorado can be very unpredictable. If we have heavy snow fall, ice can develop under the snow causing diseases such as snow mold. If this happens, allow these areas to breath by changing traffic patterns over the snow packed area.
• Salts and other ice melting agents can do serious damage to grass. You should only use ice melting materials when needed.
• Mites are a grave threat to lawns even when parts of the lawn are covered in snow. South and west facing areas are often times free and clear of snow even as the rest of the lawn is covered in snow. These are the areas mites hit. A combination of winter watering and winter mite sprays can prevent costly damage which becomes visible when it warms up in spring.
• Finally, voles can cause damage to lawns under snow. ‘Trails’ in the lawn that lead back to a common point are a sure sign of vole activity. For vole or mite control please contact Mountain High. We have affordable vole control options to protect valuable landscapes during the winter.