If you have a commercial property, you understand the importance of keeping your landscaping looking great. Whether you are trying to attract new customers to your business or quality tenants to your commercial rental spaces, landscaping is one of the first things visitors see. Throughout most of the year, keeping your grounds looking nice only requires routine maintenance. However, if you live in a region with heavy snow fall, spring cleanup is often needed to repair any damage that winter weather leaves behind, including snow mold.
What Is Snow Mold?
There are two types of snow mold:
- Pink Mold (Fusarium Patch): The patches are usually irregularly shaped, they start out small but spread quickly.
- Grey Mold (Typhula Blight): Is considered a true snow mold and requires at least 60 days of snow cover to develop.
Both of these molds will cause grass to die, and often trigger allergies. Out of the two types of molds, Fusarium Patch is the most serious. This mold kills not only the surface of the grass, but the roots as well.
Tips To Prevent Snow Mold
The good news is there are simple ways to prevent snow mold from occurring. Being proactive with these key prevention measures is much better than being reactive to the affected areas later.
- Continue mowing the lawn until the grass is no longer growing.
- Taller grass tends to mat down in snow and ice with likely will result in snow mold. In the last mowing of the season, make sure to cut grass down to 1 1/2 to 2 inches.
- Clean up fall leaves
- Keep the thatch layer no more than 1/2 an inch.
- You can achieve this by aerating.
- Seeding can help to minimize soil compaction
- The best time of the year for seeding is early autumn to mid-October and then early spring. Keep in mind depending on the seed you use it can take 4-6 weeks to emerge into the soil.
- If possible, try to reduce large accumulations of snow on the turf.
- When using fertilizer, keep a balanced regimen.
- Try to avoid being excessive with your nitrogen fertilizer during the fall
Our team can incorporate snow mold prevention into a customized grounds maintenance program to help mitigate the effects of winter weather and provide spring cleanup services to get your landscaping back to beautiful. Contact us today to learn more.
