Now that summer is approaching, your lawn may begin to appear as if it is declining a bit. This is due to seasonal stress that all plants are subject to. The most obvious are heat and lack of water, but there are other stresses hitting lawns during this time – they include insect pressure, disease pressure and also human stresses (foot traffic cuz you are outside playing on the lawn when the weather is nice).
It is because of these stresses that many of you will be tempted to run to the shed and throw down more fertilizer or water the heck out of the lawn. That is NOT the best course of action.
What I want you to do is stick to the basics. In fact, at ANY time when the lawn starts to take a turn for the worse, the best thing to do is go back to the basics. Those basics include:
1) Mow Tall – no matter what, you MUST be mowing tall. In fact, when in doubt, mow taller! I mow my lawn at 4″ during the heat of summer. Yep, 4 inches. Remember, the more grass blade surface that is exposed to sunlight, the more photosynthesis can take place within the grass plant. This is healthy and natural!
2) Mow Consistently – again, you cannot miss a week. When you let the lawn grow too long, and then you cut it, you stress it badly. This is worsened when you have dry and hot conditions. — throw in some insect pressure and your lawn is in trouble.
3) Water At The Right Time – I know people who water their lawns every day… NOT GOOD. You can get away with watering just one time a week (see #4 below) I recommend irrigating 2 times per week only when we hit a super hot and dry spell. For the most part, however, during the summer if we are getting rain a couple times a month, then you can back down and water your lawn just one time per week. You will be amazed at how your grass will adapt to only getting water one-time per week. Grass is very smart!
4) Water Deep – when you do break out the lawn sprinklers, make sure you get a good 3/4″ of water down. We want the water to soak in deeply all the way to the roots of the turf. You should use a sprinkler that keep the water low to the ground and throws out large droplets. This keeps the water in the lawn and not running down the street. I recommend impact sprinklers to do this job. You should also water in the AM before 10 if possible.
If you stick to these basics, you will be fine. If you are fertilizing the lawn using my program, don’t be tempted to throw more fert down… it won’t help anything. The organics we recommend are already naturally slow release and adding more won’t do anything but waste money.
The key here guys – stick to the basics. The basics of lawn care NEVER fail!
