This is the time prepare your lawn for winter if you want it to look great next spring.

That’s the advice from Ezra Payment, owner of Pro-Lawn Care Etc., Silverdale. His company is a full service lawn care company that can provide landscaping maintenance, fertilization, irrigation installment and maintenance, lawn clean-up and mulching.

“If you haven’t been watering, and your lawn is dormant, once the rain returns use a fertilizer with a high nitrogen content,” Payment said. “Then in October, put a winterizer on it.”

With both applications, the lawn will pull the nutrients from the fertilizers into the roots so that the grass will bounce back in the spring, he said.

Payment said that many people still think that you need to apply a fertilizer with potassium and phosphate but something with nitrogen is best.

“You’ll have healthier, fuller, greener grass in the spring,” he said. “It’s all about planning for the next season.”

If your grass has thinned out, fall is also the time to de-thatch.

Then aerate the lawn and re-seed, he said. “Before seeding you can add a half-inch of compost or new soil.”

He added that you can apply lime, if desired.

As to whether to cut your lawn before winter, Payment said they always suggest to keep your lawn at 2 3/4 inches in height.

“The more blade, the more nutrients get to the root,” he said.

Fall is also the time to spray for weeds.

“Spray for broadleaf (weeds),” he said. “The weeds will start to actively grow in the fall again for a short period, translocating sugars and nutrients to the roots. So this is a great time to spray and control broadleaf, so there will be less in spring.”

Other things to think about include mulching the beds in your yard. And consider feeding the roots of trees and bushes with a good fertilizer. If you have fruit trees, fall is the time to “oil” them.

“Use a dormant oil on the trees,” he said. “It coats them and it’s organic. It will smother insect eggs and protect your fruit trees. It protects them from mites.”

Besides Pro-Lawn Care Etc., Payment also has the local Spring-Green franchise which is a fertilizer company. He currently has more than 300 customers of which about 80 percent are residential. He will bid jobs individually without cost and currently has 19 employees. His wife is a landscape designer and she can be contacted through Pro-Lawn.

The company, which has been in operation for 16 years, grew from a lawn-mowing business Payment began when he was 13.

“I’d mow my neighbors’ yards to get money to buy the things that kids buy,” he said. “When I was in high school, a couple of my buddies joined me because I needed help.

“Then I went to Olympic College for a bit and thought I’d become a teacher. But the lawn business just kept growing so I stayed with it.”

His passion for lawn care has always been with him.

“I love to see green lawns,” he said. “I want to make lawns look like golf courses. It’s all about keeping my community beautiful and I like being outside.”

To contact Payment, call 360-265-1497.