Baton Rouge Fertilizing Companies: Preparing Your Lawn for Winter

The mowing season in south Louisiana tends to be longer than in most places. With early springs, late winters, and consistently warm temperatures throughout the year, your lawn has more time to grow. However brief the break that your mower gets, it is important to prepare your grass for winter. A key part of this preparation is fertilizing in the fall for the winter months. Here is everything you need to know about winter lawn prep and fertilization.

What is Winter Fertilizer?

Winter fertilizer is a great product that can rejuvenate your lawn from the wear, tear, and the toll that it experiences during the spring and summer months. This fertilizer not only helps to restore the lawn but provides the nourishment it needs during the winter months. This treatment will help create a healthy lawn when the time comes again for it to grow.



The fertilizer that you choose should be strong in nitrogen and potassium. These nutrients are critical that the grass and soil get the balanced resources they need. Nitrogen will restore the lawn’s carbohydrate reserves. Potassium will help with root development during the cold months to provide the strength it needs to survive cold temperatures, frost, ice, and snow. Building up and fortifying your lawn’s root system allows for the efficient absorption of nutrients and water and ultimately quicker green-up in spring and more stabilized growth during the summer months.

When Should Winter Fertilizer be Applied?

It is important to apply fertilizer before your lawn receives its first frost. This ensures that the fertilizer can establish itself while the grass is still somewhat growing. After applying a winterizing fertilizer, it is important to water it down into the soil and grass roots or you can put it out just before a light rain event is forecasted. If your fortunate enough to have an irrigation system, you can simply apply at any time and run the irrigation zones to water it in.

Fall Fungicide Application

On very overlooked application many are not aware of but is highly beneficial is the application of a granular systemic lawn fungicide. This can be done at the same time as the winterizing fertilizer and offers several key benefits. The first and most important benefit is that fungicides have preemptive control to help prevent fungal infections from starting all together. The fall temperature changes tend to add stress to both turf and plants and when they become stressed, they become more susceptible to fungal infections. Grasses like St. Augustine and some Zoysia varieties (depending on location), never go fully dormant and can suffer from fungal infections that spread throughout the season. Brown Patch fungus is the most prevalent and will result in large brown circles, easily seen in St. Augustine where the blades will die off leaving behind a more tan area of dead blades. In centipede, this usually presents as a matted down look or trampled look when centipede grass has gone fully dormant. Unlike Brown Patch fungus, Take All fungus will spread rapidly and will do severe, sometimes irreparable damage to the turf so pre-treating or treating quickly after symptoms occur is critical to ensure your lawn stays healthy and can recover quickly should damage already be done.

The experts at Kyle’s Lawn and Landscape are here to help you keep your yard looking great any time of the year. For over 14 years Kyle’s has been keeping Baton Rouge homes and businesses green and fresh.