Spring lawn care guide for Australian lawns

Spring is when most Australian lawns wake up. Warm-season grasses like buffalo, kikuyu, couch and zoysia start growing again as the days lengthen and the soil warms, and what you do over the next few months sets the lawn up for summer.

The catch is that “spring” doesn’t arrive on 1 September everywhere. A Brisbane lawn may be growing strongly in August, while a lawn in Canberra or the Southern Tablelands may not get going until October or later. So this guide is built around what your lawn is doing, not the date.

When does spring start for your lawn?

Your lawn is ready for spring care when you see:

• New green leaves coming through the winter brown.
• Runners starting to move, rooting at the joints and creeping across bare spots.
• The need to mow. If you’re mowing because it has grown, it’s growing.

Here’s roughly when that happens in each LawnMan climate zone. Use it as a guide, then watch your own lawn.

[CONFIRM: reviewer to confirm typical spring start by climate zone]

Not sure which zone you’re in? Set your postcode on the Lawn Calendar and it will show the month-by-month jobs for your zone.

Cool-season lawns are different

Some lawns in temperate and cool zones are cool-season grasses, such as fescue or ryegrass. They grow through autumn and spring and slow down in summer heat. For these lawns, spring is a second growing season rather than a wake-up, and the summer ahead is the hard part, so the watering checks below matter even more.

Step 1: Clean up

Start with a walk around the lawn.

• Rake up leaves, sticks and debris. Anything lying on the lawn shades the grass and keeps it damp.
• Look for winter weeds such as winter grass, bindii and clover. Note where they are; you’ll deal with them in Step 5.
• Check the dead-looking patches. Some brown is normal winter dormancy and greens up as the lawn grows. Patches that stay brown once the rest of the lawn has greened up need a closer look.
• Check edges and garden beds for runners creeping where you don’t want them.

Step 2: Service the mower

A sharp blade makes a real difference. Blunt blades tear the leaf, leaving ragged brown tips that make a lawn look tired.

• Sharpen or replace the blade.
• Clean the underside of the deck.
• Check the oil, air filter and spark plug on petrol mowers, and the battery on cordless ones.
• Set the cutting height. Start on the higher side; you can lower it gradually.

Step 3: The first mows

The first mows of spring are where many lawns get scalped.

• Never take off more than a third of the leaf at once. This long-standing turf rule matters most in spring, when lawns grow quickly after winter.
• Lower gradually. If the lawn was left long over winter, bring it down over several mows a week or so apart, rather than in one hit.
• Mow more often as growth picks up. By late spring many lawns need mowing weekly.
• Keep shaded areas higher than the sunny parts of the lawn.

Each grass has its own preferred height range. See the hub page for your grass in the Lawn Library, and your turf supplier’s guide for your variety.

Step 4: Relieve compaction

Winter rain, foot traffic and the car parked on the nature strip all compact soil. Compacted soil sheds water and starves roots of air.

Signs of compaction:

• Water pools or runs off instead of soaking in.
• A screwdriver is hard to push into moist soil.
• Grass is thin along paths and play areas.

Core aerating, which pulls small plugs of soil out of the lawn, lets air, water and fertiliser reach the roots. Hire a corer for larger areas or use a hand corer or garden fork for small patches. Water Corporation notes that aeration helps water and air reach the roots, particularly on lawns that have dried out.

Aerate once the lawn is actively growing so it recovers quickly. If you put down a pre-emergent herbicide in autumn, check the label first: coring and scarifying can disturb the treated layer.

Step 5: Deal with spring weeds

Bindii grows over winter and forms prickly burrs in spring. The aim is to deal with it before the burrs form. Dig out small plants, or use a selective herbicide whose label lists bindii and your grass type, applied as the label directs.

Clover is often a sign the lawn is short of nitrogen. Clover makes its own nitrogen, so it out-competes hungry grass. Feeding the lawn (Step 6) helps the grass fight back.

Winter grass may be seeding by early spring. Pull or spot treat plants before they drop seed, and plan an autumn pre-emergent so next year’s crop doesn’t germinate.

Onion weed comes back from bulbs, so it takes persistence over more than one season.

Before using any herbicide:

• Check the label lists your grass type and the weed.
• Check any warnings about temperature, lawn stress and rain.
• Use the rate on the label. Don’t make it stronger.
• If your lawn is buffalo, take extra care: buffalo is more sensitive than other grasses to some herbicides.

A thick, healthy lawn is the best long-term weed control. Weeds move into gaps, so fixing thin patches matters as much as treating weeds.

Step 6: The first feed

Once the lawn is actively growing, it’s time to feed.

• Wait for growth. Fertiliser on a dormant lawn is mostly wasted. In cooler zones, that may mean waiting until mid or late spring.
• Measure your lawn. Use the Lawn Area Calculator, then the Application Calculator to work out how much product you need at the rate on the label.
• Follow the label rate exactly. More fertiliser doesn’t mean a greener lawn. It can burn the grass, and the excess washes away.
• Spread evenly. Use a calibrated spreader for granules (the Spreader Calibration Helper shows you how), or a hose-end sprayer for liquids.
• Water it in straight after applying granular fertiliser, unless the label says otherwise.
• Sweep granules off paths, driveways and gutters back onto the lawn. Fertiliser on hard surfaces washes into stormwater drains and waterways.

Not sure which type to use? Read Liquid or granular fertiliser? and What does NPK mean?

Step 7: Check your watering before summer

Spring is the time to find out whether your watering works, before the heat arrives.

1. Run each sprinkler zone and look for broken heads, leaks, blocked nozzles and sprinklers watering the path.
2. Do a catch-cup test to measure how many millimetres each zone delivers and how evenly. Uneven coverage is a common cause of dry patches.
3. Use the Sprinkler Run-Time Calculator to work out how long to run each zone.
4. Check your local water rules for allowed days and times, which may change through the year.
5. Set the controller to water early in the morning, when less water is lost to evaporation and wind.

Water Corporation’s benchmark for Perth and the South West is 10 mm twice a week in summer, and much less in cooler months. In spring, water according to the weather: after good rain you may not need to water at all. Increase gradually as it warms up.

Step 8: Check that water soaks in

On sandy soils especially, dry soil can become water-repellent. Water beads on the surface or runs off, and dry patches appear even though you’re watering.

The quick test: drip some water onto dry soil in a brown patch. If it sits on top as beads rather than soaking in, the soil is repelling water.

A wetting agent, applied at the label rate, helps water penetrate. Late spring, before summer, is a good time to apply it if your lawn needs it. Combine it with core aerating on compacted areas.

Step 9: Watch for pests

As the weather warms, pests become active.

• Lawn grubs (curl grubs) feed on roots. Look for brown patches where the turf lifts like carpet, and birds digging in the lawn. Lift a section of turf at the edge of a brown patch and look for C-shaped, creamy white grubs.
• Keep an eye out through late spring and into summer. Armyworm is most often a late-summer pest.

If you find a problem, treat only with a product whose label lists the pest and your grass type.

Step 10: Repair and renovate

Spring is a good time to fix bare and thin patches, because warm-season grass grows quickly once it’s warm.

• Small bare patches: fix the cause first (shade, wear, grubs, dry soil), then encourage runners to fill in with feeding and watering, or patch with new turf.
• Uneven lawns: topdress dips with a thin layer of sandy soil while the grass is growing, leaving the leaf tips showing. The Topdressing Calculator works out how much you need.
• Heavy renovation such as dethatching or scarifying is best done once warm-season grass is growing strongly, from late spring. Don’t renovate where you’ve put down a pre-emergent unless the label allows it.

Your spring checklist

Log it as you go

Record each job in your Lawn Journal as you do it: the date, the product, and the rate from the label. Your Journal builds a history you can look back on next spring, reminds you when the next job in your zone is due, and warns you if you’re about to re-apply a product too soon.