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Should You Winterize Your Lawn?

Writer's picture: Juniper Lawns TeamJuniper Lawns Team

Updated: Jan 8, 2024

"Winter soil conditioner", "winter fertilizer", "winter weed and feed" - we discuss if any of these products and services make sense for warm-season grasses in Texas, or whether home-owners should focus on something else entirely.



Lawn winterization myth

Lawn winterization originated as process for cold-season grass areas, which thrive during colder seasons, and thus their fertilization and weed control schedule is almost opposite of what is needed for warm-season grasses (Bermudagrass, Zoysiagrass, St. Augustine, Centipede). Over the time, large companies tried to promote "lawn winterization" to warm-season lawn areas such as Texas and push these products to home-owners.


These products are usually higher in potassium, supposedly to improve root health before winter, but there is no science behind this. Remember that we are fertilizing the soil, not the grass, and your lawn will take in nutrients it needs. If you have been properly fertilizing during the growing season, and addressed any deficiencies that soil testing showed, adding extra potassium doesn't make any sense. There is no benefit to any excessive nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium) and it can damage the lawn. In absence of soil test, simply put a balanced fast-release fertilizer before your grass goes dormant, and let it go dormant naturally.


Improve your soil during winter

Instead of trying to grow the roots of dormant plants through some magic, we should focus on things we can control, and which many home-owners ignore.

  • Get your soil tested Most home-owners (and lawn care companies) ignore this critical step and are just applying the fertilizer blindly throughout the year. Either your lawn care provider can do this, or you can do it yourself through local university extension office (i.e. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension) or through companies specialized in soil-testing (i.e. My Soil).

  • pH adjustments Winter is perfect season for pH adjustments as our lawn is dormant (so less chance of damage), and we have sufficient time and rainfall for pH adjustment to work itself into soil by spring. Soils in our area (north Austin) are generally alkaline, so you can choose to add sulphur to lower the pH (use data from your soil test, don't blindly throw sulphur on your lawn). Some research has suggested that sulphur is both long term ineffective and cost prohibitive to sufficiently lower pH; we often prefer to use black gypsum instead, which doesn't necessarily lower the pH, but relives soil compaction and salinity. This is what we want with our Hill Country hard-packed clay soils.

  • Add biochar Biochar is pure carbon and it help your soil hold onto everything that is good - bacteria, nutrients, water. Due to top-soil application, it can take 3-6 months to start seeing results, but it will stay in soil for hundreds of years, will reduce your fertilizer needs, and will improve both water penetration and water retention. Due to long lead time until observable improvements, winter is perfect time to start adding biochar to your lawn (we recommend Anderson's Humichar, as other brands don't use micronized biochar).


Critical period for weed control

Even if you don't care about annual winter weeds (which will die off in spring), it is critical to apply pre-emergent before warm-season weeds start germinating in spring. This will significantly reduce amount of weeds you will have to deal with next summer, and is cheaper and more effective than spot treating weeds after they get established.

Caution: if your lawn is not established (didn't go through one full growing season), don't apply pre-emergent, or apply it in the dead of winter, so that it doesn't stunt the root growth of your new lawn in the spring.


Since our lawns are dormant, winter is also a great time to apply more aggressive treatments to tough perennial weeds (i.e. Dallisgrass) without fear of damaging our lawn.


With some exceptions (i.e. Poa annua, wild onion and wild garlic), winter weeds are generally easier to deal with. We will go over some of our preferred herbicides for winter use in upcoming post.


Juniper Lawns LLC is licensed Texas Agricultural Pesticide Commercial Business, and it would be our pleasure to discuss your lawn fertilization or weed control needs.

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