6 Lawn Care Tasks You Can Do Now To Repair Summer Damage Before Winter

After a summer of high temperatures, little rainfall, and more action than at any other time of year, your lawn may be struggling come September. It may look far from the lush, green carpet of your dreams and more like a patchwork quilt. However, September is an ideal window to show your lawn some love.

Lawns naturally start to recover from their summer exhaustion once the temperatures drop and they get more moisture. If you aerate, scarify, and feed as part of your fall lawn care, you can support this recuperation. The conditions in early fall are also ideal for overseeding and repairing any bare patches that opened up.

Here are our picks of crucial September lawn care tasks that will help your lawn recover from a tiring summer, be ready for winter, and come back stronger so you have a beautiful lawn next year. If you regularly invest time in lawn care, this electric aerator and dethatcher from The Home Depot is one machine in the shed for two essential seasonal tasks year after year.

1. Increase Mowing Height

A brown, patchy lawn in September means your grass is stressed. The combination of heat, dryness, and constant activity, from recreational activities to summer gatherings, takes its toll.

You do need to continue mowing your lawn in September, as the grass will keep growing until the frosts arrive. Mowing the lawn in fall keeps it neat, but you should increase the height of the lawn mower deck from what you’ve been doing in summer. It is advisable to raise the cutting height to around two to three inches.

Doing this helps the grass retain more moisture, which is vital as it recovers from the summer stress. Mowing too short in the fall can lead to weaker turf and more lawn weeds. Raise the height gradually throughout fall to prepare the lawn for the final mow of the year. This process conserves energy and helps your lawn survive the winter.

2. Aerate to Relieve Compaction

All the activity your lawn sees over the summer, from parties to playing, compacts the soil and the thatch. This compacted soil restricts the amount of water and nutrients that penetrate into the ground for the lawn to benefit from. It can be the reason for brown or bare patches of grass, or a waterlogged lawn where water struggles to soak in.

Allison Koenig, a lawn and garden expert at Tractor Supply, recommends aerating the soil in September to help it recover and bounce back again next year. ‘It is a great time to aerate your soil, which relieves compaction while also allowing oxygen, nutrients, and water to reach the roots before the ground hardens, especially for cool-season grasses like fescue or bluegrass, which thrive in the spring and fall growing seasons,’ she says.

Gardeners should aerate a lawn if they have cool-season grasses, as Allison mentioned, but not if their lawn is made up of warm-season grasses, like Bermudagrass, zoysia, and St. Augustine grass. These want aerating in late spring or early summer.

This four-row lawn aerator at Amazon has 20 steel spikes and is ideal for small lawns. For larger lawns, a rolling spiked aerator like this from Lowe’s can save time.

3. Scarify the Grass

Thatch, such as dead grass stems, roots, and moss, can accumulate during the summer. A thin layer is part of a healthy lawn, but once it gets too thick (usually over half an inch), it starts to affect your grass’ health.

September can be a time to scarify a lawn to remove thatch and prevent it from building up to excessive levels. It helps increase the water and nutrients that penetrate the soil, improves drainage, and avoids winter compaction.

Again, knowing the type of grass dictates when to scarify a lawn. Fall is a good time for cool-season grasses, but not for a warm-season lawn.

You can scarify with a spring-tined rake – a tough but rewarding job. To make things easier for a large lawn, you can get an electric scarifier. This 2-1 electric dethatcher and scarifier at The Home Depot clears 16-inch paths and includes a bag for collecting the thatch.

4. Fertilize to Strengthen the Roots

Fertilizing a lawn in fall supports the grass’s recovery and the transition into winter and beyond.

A dose of nutrients in September helps the grass strengthen its roots for winter and store food to use over the colder months. Fertilizing a lawn this month also puts it in a healthier position to grow quickly come spring, usually greening up several weeks faster than turf that was not fed in the fall.

‘We recommend fall fertilization for cool-season grasses, but less so for warm-season grasses,’ warns Jason McCausland, Technical Coordinator at Weed Man. ‘For cool-season grasses, fall is often an ideal time to feed your lawn essential nutrients. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are crucial for root development, energy storage, and overall plant health.’

This fall lawn food on Amazon restores lost nutrients and continues to feed for up to eight weeks. Apply it with a lawn spreader for even results, like this mini broadcast spreader at Walmart.

If you are planning your fall gardening checklist, it is recommended to aerate the lawn before fertilizing.

5. Overseed to Fill Patches

The conditions in September are ideal for grass seed to germinate. Warm soil, cool air, and abundant moisture make a perfect trifecta for grass seeds. Gardeners can take advantage of this by overseeding the lawn in fall to fill in any troublesome bare patches in the turf.

‘If you’re noticing bare spots in your yard, overseeding will help to fill these in – giving you a lush, green lawn come springtime,’ recommends Theresa Smith from NaturaLawn of America. ‘Doing it yourself? Apply a high-quality grass seed in the right amount using a checkerboard or crisscross pattern.’

Spreading fast-growing grass seed in September also plugs thin patches where weeds can potentially take hold.

Overseeding is best done after aerating and scarifying. Raking the grass removes thatch and identifies additional bare or thin patches, while aerating before seeding improves seed-to-soil contact to help improve germination.

The best grass seed for overseeding in the fall is fescue (Available at Amazon) or Kentucky bluegrass (available at Walmart). Spread it by hand or with a spreader. If you do it in a crisscross pattern as Theresa recommended, this helps ensure even coverage.

6. Remove Leaves

Every fall marks the start of leaves dropping from the trees. Collecting leaves is an important task that keeps your lawn healthy over winter. Leaving them in place can smother grass. This causes patchy or dying areas where the lawn can’t get sunlight or oxygen. Also, a layer of leaves stops water from reaching the roots and becomes a breeding ground for diseases.

Theresa Smith warns homeowners to ‘be mindful’ of leaves on the lawn. ‘If leaves start to fall and mat down areas, delicately remove them,’ she advises. ‘A leaf blower on a low setting is an effective tool for the task.’

A battery handheld leaf blower like this at Ace Hardware can make collecting leaves a quick task. The manual alternative is using a leaf rake.

Or, a leaf vacuum (like this 3-in-1 leaf vacuum, blower, and mulcher at Amazon) can bag up the leaves for you. It is worth making leaf mulch with them, or you can use fallen leaves to protect plants by using them as mulch on borders.

One September lawn care task that nature tends to take care of for you is watering.

If you live in a temperate climate and have a particularly warm, dry September, you may need to water the lawn in fall. However, homeowners who regularly have wetter, milder falls are unlikely to need to get the sprinklers out.

A lawn needs around an inch of water per week in September. Check how much natural irrigation your lawn gets with a rain gauge (like this rain gauge at Walmart with large, easy-to-read numbers).

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