Spare a thought for your lawn in the current conditions.
As detailed in a recent email, your lawns have enjoyed 27% less rainfall this year versus last. This is making an impression and lawns are entering dormancy, a natural self-protect mode.
If your lawn has turned brown or straw coloured, there’s no need to worry; prolonged high temperatures and low rainfall are affecting many lawns, turning brown is natural. Established, well-maintained lawns, will usually recover once adequate rainfall returns.
3 tips to help with recovery?
- If you haven’t been watering, don’t start now
- If you decide to cut you lawn, raise the cut height
- Our summer feed will aid recovery when grass growth restarts.
Dont panic….
Experience of these conditions, in particular 2018, is that lawns that continued to enjoy our seasonal feeds were provided with a “kick start” and made a quicker recovery when conditions improved, than those that didn’t
During the recovery period it also highlighted lawns with underlying issues such as compaction and thatch. We can help advise on addressing these conditions with treatments like Aeration, Scarification and our Soil Enrichment program.
The team at Greener Gardens have compiled a summary of FAQ’s:
1. How will the brown grass become green?
When sufficient rain comes, the lawns will recover from the crown, so unlike most other plants grasses have evolved to grow not from their tips, but from their base, close to the roots.
The grass crown contains numerous buds that can produce new shoots called tillers. These develop their own root system and can quickly turn into independent plants. Our drought safe lawn feed will help reduce the recovery period.
2. Should I water?
Some experts say “yes”, most insist on “not”. An established lawn does not need to be watered routinely. In fact, letting a lawn search for its own supply of water will encourage roots to go deeper and seek out moisture. This will benefit the lawn’s health in the long term.Our advice is if you have not started watering, don’t start now.
3. What about mowing?
If the grass is not growing, do not mow low! Once growth resumes, mow regularly again. It is good practice to raise the summer cutting height slightly, if tidying up the lawn.
Leaving your lawn a little longer, will allow deeper roots to grow and help trap moisture by reducing evaporation from the surface, which will improve drought tolerance. It will also help your lawn to keep a greener appearance by leaving more of the green leaf visible.
What are we expecting during the recovery period?
It’s been reported that the grass on our lawns is one of the most adaptable and hardy plants in existence. It will recover when sufficient rainfall occurs, however, below are our thoughts for attention that your lawn may require during the autumn to get it back into tip top condition.
Weeds…
Expect to see dormant seeds spring into life, once we have sufficient rainfall. We will be reviewing how we can adjust our treatment programme to address any weeds with a broad spectrum control during our autumn treatments, which will commence early September and a spot weed during this dry period.
Bare Patches…
These could be the result of either:
Traffic damage
Heavy traffic on a stressed dormant lawn may cause damage to the crown of the grass plant. We will be carrying grass seed on the vans to assist with repairs, we recommend “Green Velvet All Rounder”.
Red Thread
This is often seen on lawns normally from mid-summer through to and including autumn. It is spread by spores within the air and often seen on fine fescue lawns, but can develop on all lawn types. It is a fairly minor disease, which in most cases does relatively little damage.
It can leave patches of turf in a ‘straw like’ brown condition, which can leave the entire lawn with an all over unsightly mottled effect. Studied closely you may see red needles or pink ‘cotton-wool’ like growth on the affected areas. This is the manifestation of the fungus. More often than not, the disease will run its course and as the turf grows the disease becomes less obvious, it is very rare for the disease to be deemed worthy of specialist treatment..
The team at Greener Gardens
July 2022