Autumn leaves may be beautiful, but that doesn’t mean you should allow them to linger on your lawn through the fall and into the winter. Many homeowners do not realize the problems that can easily arise from allowing fallen leaves to stay on a lawn once the cold weather arrives. Ultimately, it’s a matter of keeping your lawn healthy, not just aesthetics.

How Leaves Might Harm Your Lawn

The fall months typically include some of the most variable temperatures throughout the year. It can feel close to spring one day and then bitterly cold the next, and precipitation can be just as unpredictable. Leaves are also biological material. When they change colors and fall from trees, this is a sign they have died, and they will begin to decompose soon.

It’s essential to remove fallen leaves from your lawn for several reasons:

• Piles of leaves block the sunlight from reaching your grass. If you allow the leaves to remain on your lawn for too long, this could create dead spots in your grass that may take quite a long time to grow back, especially since these spots won’t be healthy enough to withstand the winter weather.
• Leaves also block your grass from receiving other essential nutrients like water and healthy air is needs to stay healthy.

RELATED ARTICLE: Your Fall Yard Cleanup Checklist

• If the leaves form a barrier over your grass, the decomposition of the fallen leaves will eventually attract contaminants and even pests. Insects love decomposing plants, and the rotting leaves can also lead to problems like snow mold and brown patches.
• Allowing leaves to remain all winter long will make it much harder for new blades of grass to sprout in the spring.
• Fallen leaves can be especially damaging to cool season grasses. These grasses grow the strongest and experience the highest activity levels during the cool weather, and fallen leaves can inhibit their growth when they should be growing the most.

For these reasons, it is important to remove the leaves from your yard on a regular basis until winter arrives. By the time the weather turns very cold, the trees around your property should have finished shedding their leaves. However, keep watch for fallen leaves as the weather changes and remove them as they appear. You don’t need to worry about removing every single leaf as soon as it touches the ground, but don’t allow the leaves to remain for too long.

Use a rake or leaf blower to collect the leaves in one spot. If your township or municipality offers curbside leaf disposal, you may only need to rake them into the street before cleanup day. Another option is to empty your leaves into a compost bin. As your fallen leaves and other compostable materials break down over the winter, it could become valuable fertilizer for your spring planting.

Perrysburg Landscape offers a full range of residential and commercial landscaping services. If neglected autumn leaves have damaged your lawn, contact us today to find out how we can help you repair it and get your lawn in the right shape for a healthier growing season.

Hydro-seeding is an innovative alternative to sowing dry grass seeds. If you want to reinvigorate your property’s landscape before the winter weather starts, hydro-seeding offers several advantages over traditional grass growing techniques. This technique takes a very different approach to grass planting that offers stellar results as well as some surprising additional benefits.

Perrysburg Landscape adds premium products to our hydro-seed specially formulated for Perrysburg/northwest Ohio soil conditions:

• Tenacity: Hinders weed growth.
• Hydro-Gel: Helps retain moisture.
• Tackifier: Help prevent washout during a heavy rain.

What Is Hydro-seeding?

Unlike dry sowing, hydro-seeding uses a moistened mixture of grass seed, mulch fibers, fertilizer, and stabilizing emulsifiers. When you purchase - services, your landscaping technician will spray the mixture using hydro-mulching gear to ensure an even distribution. This technique helps to prevent the most common issues that interfere with traditional grass planting techniques, such as wind erosion and runoff from excessive rain. The heavy mixture of wood fibers and fertilizer helps to create a “blanket” that not only encourages faster growth but also keeps them in place while retaining moisture

What Time of Year Is Best for Hydro-seeding?

Fall is one of the best times of the year to plan hydro-seeding for any property. Hydro-seeding during the fall means the slurry mixture will require less water, and a hydro-seeded lawn should start showing results within just one week. While the lawn may appear a bit thin during the end of the fall, planting at this time helps ensure a vibrant, lush lawn for the following spring. It will look even better the following spring once the lawn has had more time to establish itself.

RELATED ARTICLE: Your Fall Yard Cleanup Checklist

Benefits of Hydro-seeding

If you’re wondering whether hydro-seeding is a preferable alternative to dry seeding or broadcasting for your lawn, consider the several distinct advantages this innovating planting technique offers:

1. Hydro-seeding is cost effective, ensuring a lush and beautiful lawn that’s easier to manage than dry seeding in a relatively short time.
2. A hydro-seeded lawn will have a very strong start thanks to the included fibers, emulsifying agents, and fertilizers included in the mixture that stimulate strong growth.
3. Hydro-seeding helps prevent dry spots in your lawn; the hydro-mulching equipment used to apply the hydro-seed mixture coats evenly to form a complete mat over the target area.
4. With a hydro-seeded lawn, you won’t face the same challenges from wind and water erosion as you would with a broadcasted or dry seeded lawn.
5. Hydro-seeding offers quick results; most property owners notice strong growth within a week and their lawns are ready for their first cuttings within three weeks.
6. The hydro-seeding process is fast and efficient. Experienced hydro-seeding teams can complete an average sized lawn within a few hours at most.
7. Hydro-seeding is minimally labor intensive compared to sod planting, dry seeding, or broadcasting.
8. The hydro-seed mixture includes moisture that helps promote strong growth without much need for additional watering.

Ultimately, hydro-seeding offers faster, better, and more complete results than most traditional grass planting methods. If you’re interested in reseeding your lawn this fall, contact Perrysburg Landscape today to learn more about our hydro-seeding technique.