Keeping your lawn healthy in a drought can be very tricky. Often times your lawn isn't getting enough water to have a healthy green lawn with water restrictions. Changing a few small things about how you water and treat you lawn can help keep your lawn healthy. Below are a few tips and tricks to help fight the drought this summer.
Tips and Tricks
With the stress that comes from being in a
drought follow these tips to help your lawn stay healthy. Right now, you should water deeply three times a week. Watering deeply means that your lawn should get half an inch of water each time you water. For rotary sprinklers that means watering 40 minutes per station and for pop up sprinklers watering 20 minutes per station. You also should water in the early morning. This is the best time to water because it is cool enough that the water will not evaporate before soaking into the ground.
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| Poor Sprinkler Coverage |
Sprinkler coverage is especially important for a healthy lawn. If you have random brown dying spots in your lawn even though you have been watering, a likely cause is sprinkler coverage. A great way to check sprinkler coverage is to get a tuna can or something similar and place one in a green area and one in a brown area. Run your sprinklers as normal. After the cycle has been completed gather your cans and compare how much water is in each can. You should have about a half an inch of water in the cans. If you have one that has too little or too much water adjust the sprinkler heads accordingly.
The length of your grass is key when trying to prevent weeds and heat stress. Keep your mower at the highest setting. This will allow the lawn to stay 3 to 4 inches tall. Having a lawn this tall shades the ground preventing weed seeds from germinating and water from evaporating. When mowing remember to never mow more than 1/3 of the grass blade. For example, if your lawn is 4 inches tall you should mow no shorter than 3 inches tall. Mowing more than 1/3 of the grass blade can cause stress on the lawn.
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Stress from Mowing on a Dry Lawn
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Avoid putting more stress on your lawn. Your lawn is already stressed because of the drought and doing things like over fertilizing and mowing short can cause more damage to the lawn. For a lawn that is in heat stress and browning it normally takes at least two weeks of good watering for you to start seeing your lawn green up. Please remember to follow the water restrictions in your area and do the best you can when caring for your lawn. The good thing is that your lawn will come back to the lush thick lawn you had after the drought is over as long as you can provide a little water each month.
Be Aware Of
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| Grub Damage |
Grub season is coming quick. Right now is the best time to put down a grub preventative to protect your lawn. In the coming months you might start seeing signs of grub if you did not put down a preventative. Common signs are browning areas the pull up easy that don't go away with watering. For more information on grub follow this
link to a previous blog post about grubs.
Looking for a healthy, green, and weed free lawn?
Contact us today at: 435-753-5296 or mylawn@lawndoctorutah.com
