Autumn is a good time to prepare your lawn for the year ahead, and the best time to tackle any long-term improvements. Tasks such as raking out lawn debris, eradicating moss, feeding, and aerating will improve the quality of your lawn greatly if carried out on a yearly basis.

Under some conditions, grass clippings and debris can form a thick "thatch" on the surface of your lawn. This affects growth of the grass and should be removed with a lawn rake. Raking also removes moss.

If grass growth is poor, aerate the lawn. You can do this by pushing the prongs of a fork about 15 cm (6 in) into the ground. Brush a soil improver into the holes made by the fork. Use sand or a mixture of fine soil and sand if the ground is poorly drained. Alternatively, use peat, a peat-substitute or very fine, well-rotted compost if the ground is sandy. Reseed as necessary; fall is an excellent time for reseeding.

If your lawn is in poor condition and needs reviving, apply an autumn lawn feed. It is essential that you use one formulated for autumn use, as spring and summer feeds will contain too much nitrogen. If the grass contains a lot of moss, apply a moss killer. Use one recommended for autumn use; the mixture known as lawn sand, sometimes used to kill moss, contains too much nitrogen.

You can (and should) tidy an uneven edge whenever it's necessary, but doing a full job of it in autumn will relieve the pressure at busier times of the year. Hold a half-moon edger against a board held in position with your feet.

The nature of the following fall lawn care chores depends on whether it's a cool season or warm season turf grass that you have to care for:

• Watering
• Fertilization

Fall lawn care for cool season grasses entails ensuring that lawns receive enough fall water to carry them through the long winter. Don't think that because the temperatures outside are no longer high, you can forget about watering in the autumn. Another fall lawn care tip that applies specifically to the maintenance of cool season grasses is fertilization. Use Best Nitra King 19-4-4 for quick Green up! Follow the label for feeding directions.

Conversely, avoid fertilizing a warm season turf grass in the autumn. The latter undergoes a hardening-off process during this time of year to prepare it for winter. Fertilizing warm season grasses in the fall may interfere with that hardening-off process.

So what fall lawn care tasks should you be performing for warm season grasses? By over-seeding with annual winter ryegrass such as Pennington Annual Rye, if you have a warm season grass you can enjoy a green carpet during the winter, instead of having to look at a brown lawn. But when you buy the seed, be sure to ask for the annual, not the perennial. Annual winter ryegrass will die back when summer's heat returns, turning over the lawn once again to the warm season grasses.

Lawns composed of cool season grasses can also profit from over-seeding. But in this case, the motivation behind over-seeding lawns is not winter cosmetics, but to fix bare patches.