Winter Lawn Care Tips to Prep Your Yard for the Cold

Posted on October 17, 2025

Time to Get Your Southern Lawn Ready for Frost, Freezes, & More

Winter will be here soon. While your grass may be slowing down, your work isn’t quite done. The winter lawn care you do now, before it really gets cold, plays a huge role in how your yard looks next spring.

A well-prepped lawn in the fall means a healthier, greener lawn in the months ahead. It’s that simple. Ignoring essential lawn care tasks leads to a patchy, struggling yard that’s more work to fix.

Keep reading to learn what to do with your lawn before the first frost, how to get ready for the months ahead, and so much more!

When to Start Preparing Your Lawn for Winter

North/Midwest: Let’s be honest. This is where lawns experience a true winter. Your prep work should start in early to mid-fall. Ideally, you’d get all the major tasks done (aeration, fertilization, etc.) two to three weeks before the ground freezes.

South: Lawns in the South go dormant after the first frost, so you should aim to be finished by late fall. One key thing to remember? Stop using high-nitrogen fertilizers well before dormancy since this encourages new, fragile growth that can be damaged by cold.

Transition Zones: If you live in an “in between area,” your timing will depend on your specific grass type and the expected arrival of frost/snow. It’s a delicate balance of both cool and warm-season care.

Your Essential Winter Lawn Care Checklist

1. The Final Mow of the Season

Your last mow before winter is extremely important. You don’t want to leave the grass too long or too short.

For warm-season grasses (Bermuda, St. Augustine, or zoysia), aim for a height of 1–1.5 inches. For cool-season grasses (Kentucky bluegrass or fescue), set your mower to 2–2.5 inches for the final mow. Cutting it a bit shorter in colder areas helps reduce the risk of snow mold.

Also, always remember the one-third rule: Never cut off more than one-third of the grass blade in a single mowing. If your grass is too tall, lower the blade gradually over a couple of mows.

After your final mow, it’s a good time to service your mower.

Drain the gas or use a fuel stabilizer.
Clean off any caked-on grass.
Sharpen the blades. (Sharp blades are more important than you might think. They make a clean cut, which is healthier for the grass.)

By doing this now, you’ll be ready to start on the right foot in the spring.

2. Aerate the Lawn

Aeration opens up your soil, allowing air, water, and nutrients to get down to the roots. If you don’t aerate your lawn, over time, the soil gets compacted, making it hard for roots to breathe and grow.

Benefits: It relieves soil compaction and improves how well winter lawn fertilizer and water are absorbed.
When to aerate: The best time is before the first frost, when the soil is still workable.
Warning: Don’t aerate if the ground is frozen. This can damage the grass crowns and do far more harm than good.

3. Fertilize with a Winterizer

Let’s be clear. This isn’t the same fertilizer you use in the summer. Winterizer fertilizer is formulated to help the roots, not the blades.

Look for a blend that is high in potassium and lower in nitrogen. Potassium strengthens the plant and helps it resist cold and disease. Too much nitrogen encourages top growth, which is vulnerable to frost.

The grass will store these nutrients in its roots, giving it a head start on growth when spring arrives.

When should you fertilize your lawn before winter? For the best results, do it after aerating. And don’t fertilize if the ground is already frozen. The roots can’t absorb the nutrients.

4. Add Compost or Mulched Leaves

After aerating, consider adding a thin layer of compost or mulched leaves over the lawn.

Compost slowly releases nutrients and helps the soil retain moisture. Mulched leaves add organic matter to the soil. Plus, it’s easier than raking! Just run over them with your mower a few times to help them decompose over the winter.

But make sure the leaves are mulched thoroughly. Large mats of whole leaves can smother grass.

More Southern Lawn Winter Tips

Limit Foot Traffic

Try not to walk on your lawn when it’s frozen. Grass blades after a freeze are brittle and will break easily. Step too much on your grass and you’ll see the resulting damage in the spring.

Clean Up Your Yard

Get rid of any heavy layers of leaves, branches, and other debris before the snow hits. This prevents mold and makes a less welcoming environment for pests. Move furniture, toys, and firewood off the lawn, too.

Shut Down & Check Irrigation

If you have a sprinkler system, you need to winterize it. This is also a good time to consider upgrading to a smart controller for next season.

Treat Snow & Ice with Care

If you use ice melt on your sidewalks, choose a product that’s labeled “safe for lawns.” Also, keep in mind that some rock salt can damage grass and harm nearby trees and shrubs. Products with calcium or magnesium chloride are usually better options.

Types of Winter Lawn Damage & How to Prevent Them

Even if snow, ice storms, and freezing temperatures are rare in your area, it’s best to know what might pop up.

Snow Mold: It’s a fungus that appears in circular, matted patches when the snow disappears. Prevent it by mowing at a shorter height for your final mow and by improving lawn drainage.
Desiccation: This happens when winter winds “burn” the grass by depleting its moisture. Watering the soil late into autumn enables the grass to store the moisture it needs.
Ice Damage: Avoid pockets of standing water on the lawn before a freeze, since a thick ice layer can suffocate the grass.
Crown Hydration: This happens during a false winter warm-up. The grass “wakes up” and takes in water, which freezes rapidly when the temperature dips again, causing the plant’s crown to split. You can prevent this by reducing late-season watering so the plant fully enters dormancy.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Some lawn care actions can be taken at the wrong time (or just plain forgotten), which can end up really hurting your yard. So keep these typical mistakes in mind as you prepare your lawn for winter.

Skipping aeration can lead to rock-hard soil that’s too compacted to benefit from any winter lawn fertilizer you put down.
Fertilizing too late with a high-nitrogen blend.
Overseeding late makes it nearly impossible for the new grass to establish itself before the first frost.
Forgetting to do a soil test to check the pH. Remember, grass thrives in a specific range.
Leaving toys, furniture, and thick layers of leaves on the lawn all winter can create ugly patches of dead or diseased grass.

Should You Hire a Professional?

Many winter lawn care jobs can done by the homeowner, especially if you have a small lawn, you like this kind of work, and you already have the basic equipment.

However, you may want to bring in a pro if any of the following are true:

You have a big lawn. Once you’re dealing with a large piece of property, the labor and time really start to accumulate. What would take a pro an hour to do might take you all day, and that’s if everything goes perfectly.
The soil is hard or you haven’t aerated in years. Severely compacted soil needs more than a half-hearted attempt. It takes the right equipment and methodology to truly break through and make a difference.
You’re seeing signs of bigger problems. If you spot lawn diseases, ugly patches of grass, or destructive pests, reach out ASAP. Those need diagnosing and treating, not guessing at. A professional can tell you exactly what’s going on and fix it before it gets worse.
You just don’t have the time or aren’t physically up to it. With work, family, and all the rest, sometimes bringing in a professional is just the easiest option. And why risk injuring yourself?

Make the Most of This Season

Winter lawn care doesn’t have to be complicated or stressful. Whether you need help getting the soil ready before that first freeze hits, making sure your grass survives colder conditions, or just getting a jump on spring planning, we can handle it.

Reach out to Fairway Lawns, and let us take care of the lawn care in winter so you don’t have to. We proudly serve seven states and dozens of communities, ensuring high-quality lawn care and pest control services across the South: