Late-Fall Fertilization: The Most Important Feeding for Your Fescue Lawn

If you only feed your fescue lawn once a year, November is the time to do it. The last feeding of the year, in early to mid November around Raleigh, does more for your lawn than any spring feeding. Here's why, and how to get it right.

What your grass is doing in November

When the air turns cold, tall fescue slows down above ground. You'll notice you're mowing less. Below ground it's a different story: the roots keep growing until the soil gets down to about 40°F, which in Raleigh usually isn't until December or later.

So in November, the grass is still green, still making food from sunlight, and still building roots. It just isn't spending much of that energy on new leaves.

Does late fertilizer "force growth into the roots"?

You may have heard that. It's close, but not quite how it works. Fertilizer doesn't force anything anywhere. What happens is simpler: the grass takes up the nitrogen and keeps making sugars, and since it isn't pushing out much top growth in the cold, more of those sugars get stored in the crowns, rhizomes and roots.

That stored energy is what you see next year:

• Better color into winter. The lawn stays greener longer.
• Earlier green-up in spring, without a heavy spring feeding.
• Less spring disease. Lawns pushed hard with nitrogen in spring get more brown patch in early summer. Feeding in fall instead of spring keeps the grass strong without the soft, lush spring growth that disease loves.
• Better recovery from summer stress, because the root system went into winter in good shape.

The type of nitrogen matters in cold soil

Not all fertilizer works in November. A lot of "slow-release" nitrogen depends on soil microbes to break it down, and those microbes slow way down in cold soil. Organic fertilizers and some coated products can sit there doing almost nothing until spring.

For the late-fall feeding, you want a blend with a good share of nitrogen the grass can use right away, plus some that releases with moisture rather than warmth. It has to be applied at the right rate: too much quick-release nitrogen at once can burn a lawn. This is one of the feedings where the product choice really matters, and it's one I pay close attention to on my programs.

Timing in Raleigh

• Early to mid November is the sweet spot for most fescue lawns here.
• The grass should still be green and growing a little. Feeding a lawn that's already gone off-color in a cold snap is less effective.
• Don't feed bermuda or zoysia now. Warm-season grass is going dormant, and late nitrogen hurts it. (More on that in fall care for bermuda and zoysia.)

Newly seeded this fall?

New fescue from a September or October seeding benefits from this feeding too. It's still building the roots it needs to get through its first summer. Just keep mowing it at a normal height and keep the leaves off it.

Finish the season right

• Keep the leaves off. A mat of leaves blocks the light the grass needs to make that stored energy. Mulch them with the mower or rake them.
• Keep mowing at your normal height (3½ to 4 inches for fescue) as long as it's growing. There's no need to cut it short for winter.
• Water only if it's dry. Fall rains usually take care of it, but a dry November can still stress new grass. This week's lawn water shows what a Raleigh lawn needs right now.

The late-fall feeding is the last visit of the year on every one of my fescue programs. If you're not on a program and want it done this year, get a free estimate.