1.17Keep mowing regularly and watering as necessary. Fill any crackscaused by drought with a mixture of sharp sand and soil. In dry weath-er conditions leave the grass longer to help retain ground moisture.Raise the height of cut to allow the grass to thicken and protect theroots from the winter frost and snow.Rake out the thatch from the turf and spike the lawn to assist indrainage. Brush in peat and sharp sand.Use a stiff broom to disperse worm casts before mowing. Keep turffree from leaves.Apart from brushing away leaves, December is a slack end of a busyyear. Keep off the lawn if it is very wet or frozen.The way to achieve a neat striped effect is for the lawn being cut inparallel stripes, alternate stripes being mown in opposite directions. Amuch more important routine is to cut at right angles to the line of theprevious mowing. If the work has been carried in a north-south line,then the next cutting should be in an east-west direction. The cross-cutting keeps down the coarse weed grasses.To prevent grass damage do not remove more than one third of thegrass height in one cut.CALENDARAugustLAWN CARESeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember121CG480V05ALawn Stripes