While we all love to have a great lawn in Spring and Summer there’s actually a secret way to get a head start on the competition. Here we discuss what might be a bit of a new concept for most, the benefits of Autumn fertiliser. Whilst it’s common knowledge that fertilising in Spring is very beneficial, most people aren’t aware of the benefits of an Autumnal feed.

The benefits of fertilising in Autumn

If you’re new to fertilising in Autumn we are so happy to be able to bring this information to you. It’s a bit of a game changer. The benefits include:

Increased length of growing season

During this period, it is common for lawns to be hungry, having not been fed for some time, as a result of this they often slip into dormancy earlier than they should, increasing elements that increase chlorophyll production such as nitrogen, iron, manganese and zinc you can increase the growing period of your lawn.

Increased density into slow growth season (wear and tear)

Our lawns are often worn out from Summer, whether it be from pre-season soccer games, cricket or even a bad Summer with drought or insect damage. A fertiliser containing readily available nutrition and wetting agent can help with hydrophobicity (water repelling soils) and getting it returning to full density.

Increased density into peak weed season

Increasing density in Autumn is crucial, because once we get to Winter grass growth is slow but weed growth is fast. One of the key elements to preventing weed seed germination and growth is a strong, thick, dense canopy of turf across your lawn. It’s one of the reasons Buffalo grasses are so popular, a thick dense Buffalo lawn can be completely weed free whilst one that’s been neglected and become thin can have lots of weeds.

Root and stolon development

The lawn is simply lots of turf grass plants and like every other plant they react to the changing soil temperatures, whilst some plants drop their leaves the turfgrass plant actually does a few different things. As soil temperatures drop it starts to spread and put out new runners as well as storing nutrients in these stems.

Early spring greenup

It’s weird to say that a grass which grows along the surface has a stem, but yes it is a plant. They are just modified stems. Rhizomes grow as stems underneath the surface and stolons grow across the top. During Autumn these stems will actually take in nutrients and store them for when the temperatures start to rise in Spring. So, fertilising in Autumn can have your lawn starting to come out of dormancy as soon as soil temperatures allow, putting you ahead of your neighbours come Spring.

They types of fertilisers that work best in Autumn

That depends on the condition of your lawn really. The types of fertilisers we recommend in Autumn:

Lawn Play All-Rounder

This is perfect for those that are looking for a nice slow greenup and provide the lawn with the nutrition into the modified stems for early green-up come Spring.

Lawn Play Renovate

Perfect for those looking to restore their lawn after a tough Summer, to get it nice and thick before the season closes out and those Winter weeds start to germinate. The wetting agent has the nice ability to also improve the water infiltration after a droughty Summer.

Lawn Play Enhance

As the chlorophyll production starts to reduce it’s no surprise that the lawns colour starts to reduce, if you’re one of those people who likes to keep it greener for longer than this is certainly the go.

Lawnganics Brilliance

Keeping it green into Winter is certainly a tough challenge as chlorophyll production reduces, but with the organic Brilliance of this fertiliser you will be able to retain that deep green colour for longer.

Our final Autumn advice

As you probably have realised by now, we like to keep it simple but we also want the best lawn in the street. That’s why on top of the granular fertiliser we also recommend you check out our article on lawn pigments, the use of a pigment and a high iron fertiliser can drastically increase the colour of your lawn going into Winter.

Last and certainly not least, make sure you consider preventing Winter Grass in your lawn by using Barricade or Spartan, it’s only 20ml/100m2 to prevent winter grass so it’s a worthwhile investment.