Winter Lawn Prep Tips for Southwest Virginia

Let’s Fall Into Winter Prepared!

How Do Winter Festivities Affect Your Yard?

Winter can affect a lawn in many ways. The festive season brings in people from all around: family, friends, distant relatives you had no idea existed. All of them could end up damaging your beautiful lawn because frozen grass can crack and break under pressure, which is a great reason to prepare your lawn this upcoming Virginia winter and get one of our walkways!

The List of Risks

Snow covering a lawn with overgrowing and dying grass that shows the damaging effects of landscape winterization of New River Valley.

What are the possible issues for your lawn this winter?

• Snow Mold

• Salt/De-icer damage

• Desiccation

• Soil compaction and erosion

All can cause problems in wintertime, but you can prepare for them with lawn care before winter. 

What do the Risks Mean to Your Lawn?

Snow mold appears as gray or pink patches under melting snow because snow sits on unfrozen, long grass. Salt/De-icer can cause damage to the lawn around walkways and driveways. Desiccation, which is the state of extreme dryness or the complete (or nearly complete) process of removing moisture from a substance, organism, or environment, comes from cold, dry winds on exposed ridgelines, since frozen ground means roots can't replace lost moisture. Finally, soil compaction and erosion occur on slopes during freeze-thaw, since Southwest Virginia's hilly terrain drains and shifts more than flat lowland lawns. So what do we do to prepare for winter landscaping in New River Valley?

A snow shovel pressed into snow to represent one of the ways to prevent damage to your lawn from salting driveways for winter lawn preparations for Virginia.

How Do We Prevent Winter from Becoming Harmful to Your Lawn?

There are many ways to prepare for these lawn issues in cold Virginian winters. For snow mold, it is best to mow your lawn to at least 3 inches before the cold sets in. 

To prevent damage from salt/de-icers, switch to calcium chloride or a pet-safe de-icer near lawn edges instead of rock salt (sodium chloride), which is harshest on turf, or shovel salted snow away from the grass. 

To prevent desiccation, make sure your lawn stays moist before the frost rolls in by keeping it watered during fall winterization in Southwest Virginia. 

Lastly, aerate in early-to-mid fall to prevent soil compaction and erosion, well before the ground freezes — core aeration loosens soil so freeze-thaw cycles have room to expand into instead of just heaving the surface. This is the single most useful step for compaction specifically. 

Why Should ABB be the Ones to Help?

ABB is here to help prepare your lawn for the wintertime here in Virginia, because we understand what you are going through! We go through lawn troubles too, which is why we mow lawns, build walkways, and give tips on how to keep your lawn prepared for the ever-changing seasons. Our walkways, driveways, and and patios are made with quality concrete and built with hearts three sizes too large.

What You Can Do for Your Lawn Today!

It is October, and even though Halloween is approaching, winter is going to creep up in no time flat; the fall-to-winterization is coming for your lawns in Southwest Virginia, so preparations should start today! Give us a call if you need any assistance with your lawn before the cold weather creeps in this upcoming holiday season. So remember, when the wind whistles, it’s time to trim the thistles!