What you can do about snow mold in your lawn

SALT LAKE CITY – Snow is starting to melt in some areas, which means you might be seeing some snow mold on your lawn. Although there isn’t much you can do to prevent that from happening, Taun and Maria gave some tips on the latest KSL Greenhouse show.

How can you tell if there’s snow mold on your lawn?

“The snow mold will mat the lawn over to the side. It flattens it under the weight of the snow,” Taun said.

This creates an environment with lower oxygen, which is the type of environment that fungi thrive in.

“When the snow melts off, you’ll actually sometimes see this massive fungus over the top of the grass that disappears after a couple of hours,” Taun said.

The color should be closer to white with a straw yellow tint to it. Instead of just being brown, the grass will be matted over.

What can you do about it?

“There are no sprays that will stop snow mold that are available to homeowners that are affordable. Even what’s available isn’t really practical because you have to be able to reapply it every 60 days… how do you do that with snow mold on the ground?” Taun said.

The best thing you can do is let the snow melt off and then gently rake the grass with a leaf rake and fluff it up.

“The fortunate thing with snow mold… about 80% of the time, it doesn’t kill the crowns of the grass,” Taun said.

Usually, within 8 to 10 weeks of the snow melting off, the grass does recover. However, if you don’t rake it, then the damage will be a lot worse.

Listen to the full segment on our podcast below!

The KSL Greenhouse is on every Saturday from 8 a.m.-11 a.m. You can follow the show on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.