Should you water your lawn before winter?

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA EXTENSION - www.extension.umn.edu

This past September we experienced record-setting warm and dry weather across the state, and for most of Minnesota, this trend has continued well into October.

Autumn is normally when our lawns are recovering from the drier and warmer summer stress period, and growing conditions are usually ideal for the cool-season turfgrasses we have growing in our lawns. What might a prolonged fall drought mean for our lawns? Honestly, we don’t know because most of the drought-stress research conducted on turf has focused on the summer months.

Nevertheless, we know that moisture conditions are usually the cause of stress on plants during the winter. We can expect more winter stress if the plants are already moisture-stressed going into winter.

Watering your lawn and other perennial landscape plants before soil temperatures freeze is a good idea. This will allow the crowns of the plants to rehydrate before going into the winter.

Prepare your irrigation system, too

Many irrigation systems need to be blown out before the ground freezes. This typically happens in the third or fourth week of October for much of Minnesota.

If you have an automatic irrigation system, or your lawn is already dry, consider watering at least once before your system is turned off.

If you do not have an automatic irrigation system and will be moving a manual sprinkler around your lawn, you might be able to wait a bit longer to see if a weather system brings rain before the ground freezes.

In the meantime, try to reduce stress on the lawn as you are working around the house this fall. Avoid fertilizing or aerating stressed turf.

Water saving strategies for home lawns