The key to a lush, healthy spring lawn is proper preparation for the winter. When the weather turns warmer, turf grass needs to be primed and ready to go. Because grass goes dormant during the winter, any preparation for a healthy spring must be made in the fall. For the most part, lawn winterizing is needed for cool season grasses that grow in the northern United States. Warm season grasses in the south go dormant in the winter. It is beneficial to ensure that the grass has a good, healthy root system going into the fall and winter.

The purpose of fertilizing a lawn to prepare it for winter is to fertilize at the right time for the lawn to build its root system up for the winter. For that reason, a winter lawn fertilizer with a high potassium ratio is best, because that will stimulate root and rhizome growth, not growth of leaves and flowers. Depending upon where you live, you will most likely not want to fertilize past September or October. Fertilizer too late in the season will cause the grass to keep growing, and could leave it susceptible to frost damage.

The summer is both a time of growth and harm for turf. With people outside, enjoying their yards, playing sports and gardening, grass takes a beating. Compaction is one of the worst problems inflicted on lawns with lots of foot traffic. Compaction compresses the spaces in the soil where oxygen can be available to the roots. Without oxygen, the plants cannot complete their metabolic processes (breaking down the sugars they have stored from photosynthesis) and will die.