Fertilize your brown lawn

Lawns which turned brown without irrigation during the summer are starting to green up with the fall rains. This is the time when new roots and shoots are developing. Fertilizing now will thicken the lawn. It will look nicer this winter and will also be much healthier in the spring.

The nice thing about our Northwest green winter lawns is that they stop growing taller about late November. You will only have to mow 2 or 3 more times. I like to mow the grass a little shorter as the grass starts to green up. This removes the brown grass so the new green shoots can show up sooner.

This is also a good time to kill broadleaf lawn weeds such as dandelions. You can apply liquid lawn weed killer or use a combination granular weed and feed product. Granular weed and feed should be applied when the grass is wet. Liquid weed killer needs to be applied on a dry day so the rain does not wash it off.