The single biggest problem with lawn advice found online is that most of it is written either for a northern cool-season climate or for South Florida. We are neither. North Florida gets genuine freezes, warm-season turf goes fully dormant, and the timing of everything follows from that.
December through February — dormancy
The lawn is brown and it is supposed to be. Dormant centipede and Bermuda look dead and are not.
- Do not fertilize. Nitrogen on dormant turf feeds winter weeds and does nothing for the grass.
- Keep leaves off. A heavy wet mat of oak and pecan leaves smothers crowns and invites disease.
- Mow occasionally if winter weeds are growing — cutting them keeps them from seeding.
- This is the right window for hardscape, bed work, shrub pruning on the appropriate species, and equipment service.
- Watch for frost damage on tender landscape plants after a hard freeze.
Late February into March — the pre-emergent window
This is the most time-sensitive item on the whole calendar. Pre-emergent herbicide works only before weed seeds germinate, and germination is driven by soil temperature rather than the date.
Crabgrass and the other summer annuals start moving once soil temperature at seed depth holds above the mid-60s for several consecutive days. Around here that is generally earlier than northern calendars suggest. Apply before that, water it in, and do not aerate afterwards — core aeration punches straight through the barrier.
March into April — green-up
Wait for the lawn to be genuinely out of dormancy before the first feeding. Fertilizing a half-dormant lawn pushes growth it cannot support, and a late frost on that tender growth causes real damage.
Centipede greens up later than Bermuda, and every spring somebody panics about a centipede lawn that is simply behind schedule. Give it time.
First mow of the season: sharpen the blade first, and take it in stages if the lawn is long rather than scalping it in one pass.
May through August — the growing season
- Mow on growth rather than on a calendar, never removing more than a third of the blade.
- Water deeply and infrequently, early morning. Evening watering leaves the lawn wet overnight, which is what large patch and brown patch want.
- Watch for chinch bugs in St. Augustine, particularly along hot dry edges, and for sod webworms and armyworms from mid-summer.
- Keep nitrogen light on centipede.
- Expect disease pressure after any humid, wet stretch.
September through October
The last fertilizer application needs to be early enough that tender new growth is not caught by the first freeze. Pushing growth late is a common and avoidable way to damage a lawn.
This is also the fall pre-emergent window for the winter annual weeds — annual bluegrass and the winter broadleafs — timed as soil temperatures fall rather than by date.
November — winding down
Growth slows and stops. Start leaf management, and get the last cut in at a normal height rather than cutting short "for the winter", which is a northern habit that does not help warm-season turf here.
Things with no season
Drainage problems, irrigation coverage faults, and soil compaction do not fix themselves and do not have a season. Any of those left in place will limit whatever the calendar says you should be doing.
Always read and follow the label on anything you apply, and a soil test through your county extension office is worth more than any calendar for deciding a fertility program.
If you would rather have somebody who does this every week look at your yard and tell you straight what it needs, get in touch. We are based in Monticello and we cover Jefferson, Leon and Madison counties along with the South Georgia line.