Fall is right around the corner! Even though we are in the Sunshine State, the weather in Florida eventually turns cool, and it is important to know how to care for grass during the Fall.  Commonly, grasses made for cool seasons include bluegrass, bentgrass, fescues, and ryegrasses.  Warm season turf grasses include Bermudagrass, Saint-Augustinegrass, zoysiagrass, and buffalograss.

Regardless of whether you have cool season turf grass or warm season turf grass growing in your lawn, there are a couple things you can do to keep up with your fall lawn maintenance.  First, apply a herbicide to any broadleaf weeds.  As you can gather from the name, broadleaf weeds are those who have broad instead of scale or needle-like leaves.  If your lawn has not been performing well, you should also check the pH level of the soil.  If it is showing as too acidic, you can apply lime, and if it is too far on the alkaline scale, you can apply sulfur.  You should also dethatch the lawn by raking it, and possibly using an aerator on the lawn if it is suffering from soil compaction.  Finally, make sure to rake up any leaves consistently throughout the fall so that they do not smother your grass during the winter.

If you have a cool season turf grass in your lawn, you want to make sure to add nitrogen to your lawn, and also make sure that your grass receives enough fall water to carry it through a long winter.  If you have warm season grass you can overseed it with annual winter ryegrass so that you can enjoy a green carpet of grass even through the winter.