How to Care for Your Lawn this Winter

Unless absolutely necessary, avoid mowing your lawn during winter. This keeps some extra length on the grass blades, allowing more leaf area for photosynthesis and helping to keep your lawn healthier and greener. If you do need to mow, ensure you raise the height of the mower to avoid removing too much of the leaf blade.

If you're noticing small discoloured, brown/pink or even dead patches of grass, it's time to act now as these can be signs of a lawn disease known as Winter Fusarium or Fusarium Patch (Microdochium nivale). It's common in lawns that are well watered, have a thick layer of thatch, and where soils are high in nitrogen. The fungus develops when night temperatures are low and can be exacerbated when there is water sitting on the leaf blades.

If you notice lawn diseases (Brown Patch, Dollar Spot, Fusarium or Helminthosporium only) creeping in during winter, treat with Yates Mancozeb Plus Garden Fungicide and Miticide.

To help prevent disease, the best method is to manage plant health and nutrition. A healthy lawn is less likely to be susceptible to disease. Avoid using lawn fertilisers high in nitrogen, especially in autumn, and instead, focus on applying a complete fertiliser, like Yates Dynamic Lifter Lawn Food for nourishment.

Thatch can be a breeding ground for spores. Lawn care that reduces thatch build-up such as de-thatching in spring or simply mowing with a catcher can reduce disease incidence.

During winter, lawns aren't regularly watered, so when rainfall does occur, the soil may have become hydrophobic (water repellent), which results in water sitting on the soil surface. This additional moisture can increase the chance of diseases developing. Using a soil wetting agent such as Yates Waterwise Soil Wetter will improve water penetration and benefit the health of the lawn.

Slow or no lawn growth during winter allows weeds to quickly take over. Some of the most common cool season weeds include Bindii, Clover, Dandelions, Capeweed, Thistles, and Winter Grass.

Bindii is an important weed to highlight as it typically emerges in mid to late autumn and continues to grow during winter, until spring and summer when it produces seeds. The seeds are the bindii prickles! They have sharp spikes that can embed in shoes or cause real discomfort in bare feet and pet paws. It is recommended to treat Bindii from late autumn to mid-late winter, to prevent the bindii plants from setting their prickly seeds, so you can enjoy a prickle-free lawn in spring and summer.

For the control of common winter weeds in lawns like Couch and Kikuyu, spray the entire lawn with Yates Weed'n'Feed, available in both a hose-on applicator and in the Click & Grow Garden Care System. For Buffalo lawns use Yates Weed'n'Feed Buffalo Lawn or Yates Lawn Weed Killer Bindii & Clover Buffalo Lawn, which have been specially designed to be safe for buffalo lawns. Yates Weed'n'Feed products have the added benefit of providing nutrients to green the lawn.  Please ensure you have read and understood all label instructions prior to every use.

Winter Grass is a lime-green weed that grows in tufted clumps in lawns. It is an annual weed that grows in autumn, thrives in winter, and sets seeds in spring, or earlier if weather is warm. It is easily noticeable in winter in warm season grasses as winter grass are the greenest patches in the lawn. Winter grass spreads easily due to its ability to produce a large number of seeds, and can be found in Australia and many other parts of the world.

To control and prevent Winter Grass in Buffalo lawns, Munns Professional Winter Grass Killer should be applied as soon as young winter grass seedlings are noticed, typically in autumn. For Buffalo lawns with a reoccurring Winter Grass infestation, apply as a preventative spray in autumn to prevent Winter Grass seed from germinating.  Munns Professional Lawn Weed Preventer can also be applied in late summer and early autumn, to prevent Winter Grass seed from germinating. 

Curl grubs are a common and destructive lawn insect pest during spring. Adult African black beetles mate and lay eggs during early spring, which hatch into Curl Grubs that chew through lawn roots and cause dying and dead patches throughout the lawn.

Yates Advanced Lawn Insect Killer is a broad-spectrum insecticide for control of a wide range of lawn insect pests, including adult African black beetle. Applying Yates Advanced Lawn Insect Killer during late winter will help control the adult African black beetles before they've had a chance to lay eggs, which turn into Curl Grubs.

Yates Advanced Lawn Insect Killer will also control adult billbug, adult Argentine stem weevil, ants and grasshoppers in lawns. For most lawn pests, Yates Advanced Lawn Insect Killer can be applied by either a garden sprayer or watering can. 

Over-watering your lawn during the winter months can encourage disease. Unless it looks very dry and leaves are curling, it's a good idea to significantly reduce the watering of your lawn during the cooler months. If you do need to water, do it in the mornings so the lawn has time to dry off during the day rather than staying damp all night, which can promote the development of diseases. 

Frost leads to the water in your grass blades freezing, so walking over it results in these grass blades snapping under your feet. So, keep off the grass! This damage will be seen initially as black marks and later brown dead leaf blades. When you have a light frost, it is possible to help the lawn by applying a light application of water before the sun rises; this can remove the frost quicker and help the lawn deal with the shock and stress of the low temperature. If the frost is heavy or the morning is still cold, do not apply more water as this can just add water that also gets frozen, significantly increasing the problem.

In cool and temperate areas around Australia, many grasses lie dormant over much of winter, so there is no need to feed. To get the best from your fertiliser, the lawn needs to be waking up and late August or early September is the perfect time to start feeding your lawn. This ensures there are enough readily available nutrients in the soil to help it start growing well when warm weather arrives in spring. To promote healthy green growth and improve the soil, in early spring apply a Yates Dynamic Lifter Lawn Food. They contain natural ingredients to gently feed all lawn types, including Buffalo, and improve soil health. 

If you have a Couch or Buffalo lawn, it is quite common for the lawn to have a tinge of purple during the winter months.

There is nothing to worry about. It will green up again once the weather warms in spring.