As December arrives and gardens across the UK slip into their dormant winter phase, a crucial maintenance task emerges to protect one of your plot's most prominent features: the lawn. While the grass may not be growing, its health through the frost and wet weather is paramount for a vibrant return in spring.
The Essential December Lawn Care Tip
Gardening specialist and popular TikTok content creator, Ish, has pinpointed the one key job homeowners should complete this month. The focus is squarely on combating winter waterlogging, a common issue that can leave lawns saturated, boggy, and vulnerable.
Ish advises gardeners to aerate their lawns using a simple garden fork. This straightforward process involves poking holes into the turf to dramatically improve drainage. "It's not officially too cold to worry about mowing your lawn, it will stay dormant and in shape until next spring," Ish explained. "But if you're starting to notice wet patches then don't be afraid to use a garden fork to add a little bit of drainage."
How to Aerate Your Lawn Correctly
Lawn aeration works by creating openings in the soil that allow essential oxygen, moisture, and nutrients to reach the grass roots. This alleviates soil compaction and boosts root vitality. For the winter task, a standard garden fork is perfectly adequate.
Ish's recommended method is a simple two-step process:
- Use the fork to poke holes across any damp or problematic areas of the lawn.
- Follow this by sprinkling a little lawn sand into the holes to help keep them open and further improve drainage.
"By poking a few holes in, and then just chuck in a little bit of lawn sand in there, you'll help that drainage, so it doesn't become all boggy and gross over the winter months," he added.
Pro Tips for Effective Aeration
Timing is important for this task to be most effective. Experts, including those from B&Q, suggest that the optimal time to aerate is one or two days after rainfall, when the ground is moist but not waterlogged. Aerating when the soil is too dry is difficult, and doing it after extremely heavy rain when the ground is saturated is counterproductive.
The benefits of this winter lawn care are significant:
- It prevents waterlogging and surface runoff.
- It encourages deeper root growth, building resilience.
- It helps the lawn better withstand disease and drought stress later in the year.
For those dealing with a thick layer of thatch—a mat of dead grass and roots—a more intensive process called scarification might be needed. However, for most lawns in December, the simple fork aeration and sand technique promoted by Ish is the key preventative measure to ensure your grass survives the winter in good health, ready to thrive when warmer weather returns.
