10 Steps to Preparing Your Minnesota Lawn for the Winter

Your lawn and landscape need attention to help start preparing your lawn for winter. Doing these things will help make sure your lawn has all the nutrients and other things it needs to grow and look nice in the spring. We’ve compiled a list of steps you can take to prepare your lawn for winter.

1. Start early. Don’t wait until late fall and try to squeeze winterizing in. Start in late summer and early fall.
2. Get a soil test. Your county extension service will have sample bags and instructions for getting a good sample. In a week or two, you will get back a list of the major nutrients in your lawn. It will also give you suggestions for what to use to fertilize your lawn. For best results, get one sample for the front lawn, one for the back lawn, and one for each flower or vegetable bed.
3. Rake your leaves up. Any leaves left on your lawn when it snows will form a cap and keep the grass from getting enough oxygen and from drying out between storms. If your grass is not getting enough oxygen and is staying wet, it is more vulnerable to disease.
4. Mow one last time before the first freeze. Mow the grass down to about 1 ½ inches tall.
5. Dethatch your lawn. You can rent dethatchers from equipment rental agencies and even some big box stores. Rent an aerator at the same time. Use a plug aerator all over your lawn to open up space for water and nutrients to reach the root zone of your grass. If doing the work is something you don’t have time for, hire it out to the professionals!
6. Fertilize. Use a good winterizing fertilizer that meets the suggestions in your soil test. The plants will take up the fertilizer and store what they do not immediately need. In the spring, they will use that stored food to get a jump on growing. This means your lawn will be lush and green sooner.
7. Repair bare spots in the lawn. Seed them so that they will look nice in the spring. Make sure the fertilizer you use does not have a pre-emergent in it if you are going to use grass seed. The pre-emergent will kill the grass seed and you will waste your time and money.
8. Prune, but only cut off dead, diseased, and broken limbs. If you prune other branches, the branch will put out new growth which will freeze when it gets cold. That damages the tree or shrub and can stunt its growth in the spring.
9. Wrap young trees and shrubs. Wrap them in burlap to help protect them from the cold this winter. You can take the wrap off in the spring when it warms up and stuff starts growing.
10. Give your lawn a good watering. This lets the roots plumb up so if the soil freezes deeper than the roots, the roots have some water to live off of. After this last watering, drain the water from outdoor pipes. This includes your valves and sprinklers. Bring your hoses inside, too, so they do not crack and break.

One last tip: After your tools have been used the last time, bring them inside for the winter. Make sure you drain the gas and oil from them. Sharpen bladed tools and put new blades and spark plugs on your mower before using it again in the spring. They have helped you in preparing your lawn for winter – now prepare them for winter too.

Winter in Minnesota is unpredictable, but if you do the right things, your landscape will be ready to take off in the spring. Sometimes, you need a little help. Call All Metro Service Companies, LLC – we can not only winterize your landscape for you, but we can also help wake it up in the spring. We offer snow removal during the winter, so you don’t fall on slick sidewalks and driveways. Call All Metro Service Companies, LLC today at (763) 789-4788 for year-round landscape maintenance.