October is the best month to carry out Autumn lawn maintenance and prepare the grass for the coming winter months. The work put in now pays real dividends the coming spring.
Feeding, scarifying, top dressing and over seeding are all tasks that ideally should be completed by November if you wish to kick into spring with a growing, green, lush lawn.
Walking on a lawn this time of year, when the weather is as it is should be kept to an absolute minimum, if at all. Ball games are a big no no. A lawn will simply tear up, become unsightly and require much, much more maintenance come spring. Better to look after what you have, improve it now and abuse the local parks turf instead, after all it’s more suited to kicking a football about.
When turf (and the soil below) is wet, walking on it will only compact the soil thus removing the soils ability to hold air and drain water freely. October, normally when the rains come also brings with it the worms. Beneficial to the health of a lawn but unsightly and damaging when the worm casts laying on top of the soil are trodden on. If you are going to be walking over a lawn with worm casts then a besom broom is the best tool for knocking them down.
When all herbaceous planting has died back, the lawn can be the focal point in the garden for a while. If it looks like an end of seasons football pitch you are missing out on some much needed colour.