Lawn care schedule

What It Means

A lawn care schedule is a calendar of lawn jobs, each placed in the season when the grass can take it best. The biggest thing that sets the calendar is the type of grass. Cool-season grasses, common in northern states, do their main growing in spring and fall, while warm-season grasses, common in the South, grow hardest in summer. Your state's university extension service publishes a calendar for the grasses grown where you live.

How It Sounds at Home

• "When are we supposed to put the grass seed down?"
• "Don't fertilize now, it's way too hot."
• "The bermuda's finally green, time to aerate."

The Breakdown

How to build one

1. Find out which grass you have. Your state's university extension service can usually help you identify it, and many publish a lawn calendar for their area.
2. Put the seeding window on the calendar. For a cool-season lawn in Minnesota, UMN Extension gives mid-August to mid-September. Clemson's yearly programs for warm-season grasses time each job to when the grass is fully green and growing.
3. Add the feeding dates. UMN names early September as a good time to fertilize a cool-season lawn and warns against fertilizing in hot midsummer.
4. Add the renovation jobs. UMN puts aeration of a cool-season lawn in late summer to fall, and Clemson puts dethatchingDethatchingRemoving the layer of dead and living stems and roots that builds up between grass blades and the soil, once it grows thicker than about one-half inch. See more and aeration of a warm-season lawn in late spring.
5. Set your mowing height. UMN suggests 2.5 to 3 inches for Minnesota lawns.
6. Buhata's own suggestion: after each season, write down what worked, so next year's calendar reflects your yard rather than a generic one.

Short version to try today. Look up your grass type and your state extension service's lawn calendar, and put this year's seeding window on your calendar.

Good to Know

The dates on this page come from two states: Minnesota for cool-season lawns and South Carolina for warm-season ones. Where you live shifts every window, sometimes by weeks, so check your own state's extension service before you seed or fertilize. Clemson warns that overseedingOverseedingSpreading grass seed over an existing lawn, without tearing it out, to thicken thin turf or, on bermudagrass, to add ryegrass for winter. See more centipede, zoysia and St. Augustine with ryegrass can seriously damage them in the spring and early summer.

Related Terms and Categories

• Lawn aeration

  Pulling small plugs of soil out of a lawn with a core aerator, so air, water and roots can get through compacted soil and thatch.

• Overseeding

  Spreading grass seed over an existing lawn, without tearing it out, to thicken thin turf or, on bermudagrass, to add ryegrass for winter.

• Dethatching

  Removing the layer of dead and living stems and roots that builds up between grass blades and the soil, once it grows thicker than about one-half inch.

• Mulching

  Spreading a layer of material such as wood chips, bark or leaves over the soil around plants to hold moisture, keep roots cooler and hold back weeds.

• Winterizing sprinklers

  Draining and blowing the water out of an in-ground sprinkler system before freezing weather, so ice can't crack its pipes, valves and heads.

• Lawn care cost

  What a household pays for mowing and other yard work over a season, often priced per visit plus extra jobs such as aeration or leaf cleanup.

Home maintenance and repairs