Lawn Care During Drought

For us in the UK we don’t tend to be affected by this very often, you know because of the non-stop rain, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know how to deal with it when it comes around. In times of drought your lawn can take a real pounding which can really spoil your summer relaxation. To keep it in shape for you to enjoy make sure you make use of the tips and advice I’ll be talking about below.

How to Tell if Your Lawn is Suffering From Drought

If your lawn is struggling from the hot and dry weather then you’ll begin to notice the grass stop growing and turning brown. This means it’s deprived of water and is especially clear when the top 4 inches of soil dry out. The lawn grass will then become weak and as their roots begin to deteriorate, you could notice weeds and moss sprouting up in areas of bare soil – in this case you must take action as quick as possible.

In periods of hot and dry weather make sure you check out these things:

• Footprints – a properly water and healthy lawn will spring back back up once walked over (this is also a good indicator for when you need to water your lawn) whereas a dried out lawn will not and the footprints will stay there for a good while longer.
• Foliage – if you begin to notice the grass plants starting to wilt then this shows you it needs some water, the drier the plant the more obvious the wilting
• Soil – if the soil is cracked and broken then there is no moisture for the grass to utilise, you can check this by sticking a key or screwdriver in the soil.
• Colour – as I said above a lawn that’s in lack of water will begin to change colour, at first it’ll go blueish grey and then eventually go brown.

Please bare in mind you don’t need to worry if your weather takes a turn for the worst all of a sudden, drought will only affect your lawn when it lacks moisture within its soil, not just because the weather has gotten hot and dry for a week. If you’ve had some rainfall over the past few weeks then you should be okay, just sit back and enjoy the great weather!

What to do in Times of Drought

Mowing

To avoid weakening the grass make sure you set the mowing height to the highest level and let the grass clippings fall back into the soil . The grass clippings act a mulch which promotes better growth and health in the soil, and they help slow down the evaporation of water, just make sure they aren’t too small or they’ll smother the grass and cause even more damage! (a robotic lawn mower would be perfect!).

Watering

Water the lawn once if becomes dry but before it changes colour, this limits the damage. If you notice that the soil is getting really dry and cracked then trying aerating it before watering as this helps the water reach the bottom of the roots. Make sure you water early in the morning, to reduce water lost to evaporation, and do so once every 7 to 10 days.

Make sure you don’t over flow the lawn with water as this is very wasteful and will cause shallow rooting and even the growth of moss and diseases. Watering for an hour should be enough to give it everything it needs.

Weeds

Make sure you never use weed killers during a drought. They just stress the grass even more than it already will be and will probably get even more damaged because of it, also when some rain does come around more weeds will grow which means applying before is a waste of time. Instead I would pick them out manually if you really want to get rid of them and then apply the weed killer when the weather gets better.

If you found this post interesting then maybe you’d like to see some of my other content, like my robomower reviews? If so then head over to my Robot Lawn Mower Review Page, I’ve reviewed various models all designed for different purposes so if you’re in the market there won’t be a better place to go than here!