Part of having a beautiful yard in the spring and summer involves taking care of it during the colder months. If your lawn is properly winterized, it has a better shot at surviving the colder temperatures and it will be more likely to flourish when spring arrives.

Angie’s List turned to its lawn and garden experts to help provide advice for homeowners with cool season grasses on keeping a healthy lawn:

• Fertilize your lawn in early fall. Fall fertilization is important so your lawn will have nutrients to feed off during the winter months.
• Aerate your lawn in the fall for good root development. Aeration allows for air, moisture, and fertilizer to travel to the roots of the grass more efficiently over the winter and allow the turf to be thicker in the spring.
• Just because temperatures are cooling, that doesn’t mean you should stop mowing and watering your lawn. Grass should be mowed until it stops growing and keep your grass 2 to 2-1/2 inches tall. Watering is important to sustain growth – lawns need about an inch of water a week to thrive.