A Tri-Cities lawn comes out from under the snow looking rough almost every year, matted, patchy and sometimes with a greyish, cobwebby mould across parts of it. Most of that is completely normal and resolves on its own with the right early spring care rather than aggressive early intervention.
Snow mould is not a disease you need to treat
Grey or pink snow mould, the matted, discoloured patches that show up as the snow melts back across the lawn, is caused by a fungus that grows under snow cover through the winter and almost always clears up on its own once the lawn dries out and gets sun and air circulation again through April. A light raking to fluff up the matted grass and improve air circulation is usually all it needs, rather than any fungicide treatment, which is rarely necessary for an ordinary residential lawn and is often reached for before the lawn has even had a chance to recover on its own.
Wait for the ground to firm up before anything else
Walking on, raking, or especially driving equipment over a lawn while the ground is still soft and saturated from snowmelt compacts the soil and can tear up the turf in a way that takes far longer to recover than the mould does. Wait until the ground has firmed up and is no longer squelching underfoot before raking, aerating or doing anything more than the lightest cleanup, even if that means the yard looks rough for a couple of extra weeks while everything else greens up around it.
The first cut
The first cut or two of the season sets up how the lawn handles the rest of the summer.
- Wait until the grass has grown enough to need cutting rather than mowing on a fixed calendar date.
- Set the mower deck higher than you would use in summer for the first cut or two of the season.
- Cut no more than about a third of the blade length in a single pass, even if the grass has grown long over winter.
- Lower the deck gradually over the next couple of cuts rather than dropping straight to summer height.
- Sharpen the mower blade before the first cut if it was not done at the end of last season, since a dull blade tears rather than cuts stressed spring grass.
Overseeding thin patches
Late spring is the right window for filling in bare or thin areas left by winter damage.
- Wait until late spring, once nighttime temperatures are reliably above freezing, before overseeding.
- Rake bare or thin patches lightly to loosen the surface before spreading seed.
- Spread seed evenly by hand or with a broadcast spreader, following the coverage rate on the bag.
- Keep newly seeded areas consistently damp, watering lightly once or twice a day rather than deeply every few days, until germination.
- Hold off on normal mowing over the seeded area until the new grass is established enough to handle it, usually a few cuts' worth of growth.
If the lawn needs more than a spring tidy-up, our landscaping and yard work service in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge can take on the cleanup, cutting and bed maintenance for the whole season.