Brown winter grass likely just dormant

By Audrey Post
MS. GROW-IT-ALL®

Q: Is there anything I can do to help my lawn get through these last freezes of winter? It looks bad enough now, all brown and dry. I really don’t want it to get worse.

A: More than likely, your lawn is just in winter dormancy. Most sod grasses grown in the Deep South – particularly St. Augustine, zoysia and centipede --are tolerant of both the heat and humidity of summer and the occasional hard freezes of winter.

The leaf blades look brown and dead, but the runners that produce the blades and the roots are probably fine. It’s too early to be able to diagnose a fatal injury. Wait until mid- to late April in Zones 8a and 8b – roughly an area from just south of Atlanta to just north of Orlando – to start worrying. Give your grass a chance to start growing again; you’ll be able to see problem areas by then, and even those might fill in.

It won’t do any good to fertilize or mow now. The soil is too cool to absorb the nutrients in the fertilizer, and mowing could prompt new growth that would be susceptible to damage in the next freeze.

The one thing you could do before the next freeze is to water your lawn just enough to get the soil moist. The water will provide some insulation. It’s the same principle commercial fruit growers follow when they water their crops right before a freeze.

Reader tip for cold protection: Elizabeth Henderson of Tallahassee e-mailed to share a tip she learned from her neighbor Ann about protecting fragile plants from freezing.

“As the temperatures wax and wane in our part of Northern Florida, my neighbor Ann has found the solution to ‘protection.’ Rather than cover her plants with blankets, she has draped her plants with Christmas tree lights. I adopted this plan, as I have been trying to keep my fragile staghorn fern alive and it is much too large and heavy to move inside.”

Her neighbor simply goes outside and plugs in the lights if the night temperatures are forecast to drop below 40 degrees Farenheit, and then checks the morning temps to decide when to turn off the lights.

“My staghorn and other ferns have survived well with the recent drops to 18 and 15,” Elizabeth reports. Her neighbor is using what she describes as “the nice small white Christmas lights” and they have worked well.

However, “in my move to the Village of Westminster Oaks, the only lights I have are the large colored lights my family used to drape the back eave of our former home, and they have not only protected the ferns, but also anything that is growing on the ground below.” She loves not having to go out cover the plant, then, remove the cover in the morning, only to repeat the process that evening.

“So, to the ‘Zing-er’ who noted some folks still have their Christmas lights on, maybe it is those of us who have learned the simple way to save our plants during the freezing temps!”