What walking on a snowy lawn does to your grass

However, should you forget, amongst the flurry of frivolity, there is the damage that walking on a snowy lawn can do.

Walking on a snowy lawn causes compaction

The grass on your lawn is a living thing that gets most of its needs from its soil (water and nutrients) and a little help from the sun. When your soil is of good composition (clay, sand, silt in balance) and is free draining, your grass will have the best conditions to grow. However, if your soil is of poor makeup and struggles to drain, it will be increasingly susceptible to compaction.

How does lawn compaction happen?

Compaction occurs when the surface of your lawn (top layer of soil) receives a lot of heavy play/walking and, therefore, begins to harden. The best way to stop this is preventive measures – regularly aerating your lawn to improve drainage and dispersal of nutrients and ensuring you don’t walk on the lawn when compaction is more likely to happen – i.e. cold weather and snow.

Our cold UK weather causes the lawn's surface to harden much quicker, but it shouldn’t cause any lasting damage when aerated. Snow worsens this hardening, so if there’s one you can do to stop it from further compacting your lawn, don’t walk on it!

A compacted snowy lawn leads to disease

Compaction then causes many issues with your lawn. The grass may struggle to recuperate in warmer weather and become yellow and straw-like or may begin to suffer from disease and die completely if ignored.

What lawn disease can compacted snow cause?

The disease most likely to affect your lawn from compaction is the lawn lover’s arch enemy – Fusarium. Fusarium causes your grass to become yellow/brown in patches across your lawn and will kill it off if left to its own devices. Of course, dead patches can eventually be reseeded, but you could save yourself a lot of heartaches if you prevent fusarium from culminating in the first place in two short steps.

How can compaction be avoided?

The best thing you can do is regularly aerate your lawn to avoid compaction initially and protect it with a Slow Release Autumn / Winter fertiliser that is low in nitrogen and won’t make things worse. And last but not least – keep activity on your cold or snowy lawn to an absolute minimum.

Frost scorch & lasting prints

Suppose you ignore our earlier advice and opt for festive frolicking (sometimes unavoidable with over-excited kids!) once the snow melts away. In that case, you may find that your footprints will be imprinted into your grass, and while the rest of your grass will be green, the prints may be noticeably yellow.

As preventative measures are now out the window, your options are to repair your lawn, which can be done relatively quickly. The grass is relatively hardy – so by giving your lawn a feed with a Quick Release: Autumn / Winter fertiliser and again in early spring with a Quick Release: Spring / Summer fertiliser, it will have all the nutrients it needs to bounce right back. You will quickly bring your lawn back to its former glory!