April Showers they say! driest April in over 30 years. What should be a few months of strong growth, helping lawns recover form winter stresses, is turning out to be a few months where some lawns are entering ‘Summer Dormancy’. They look very straw like, even dead in places. We can turn this round with the follow advice.

April Showers they say! driest April in over 30 years. What should be a few months of strong growth, helping lawns recover form winter stresses, is turning out to be a few months where some lawns are entering ‘Summer Dormancy’. They look very straw like, even dead in places. We can turn this round with the follow advice.

So what can you do to help?

1st is to raise your lawn mower if your cutting your lawn short. Grass is 90% water and when you trim the lawn short your removing the plants water reserves.

2nd Water the lawn, once a week and only apply 1 inch of water, we don’t want to water every day (unless you have had some seed work done)  because this causes shallow root growth as the roots don’t need to grow deeper to find water. So how do you know how much an inch is? you could go to a garden centre and buy a water gauge however, a washed out used Tuna Fish tin is ideal, place this on the lawn whilst your sprinkler is on, when the tin is full  thats enough water in that area for a week.

When to water the lawn?
The best time to water the lawn is Morning or early afternoon, try and avoid evenings. The reason is damp grass going into night is great for disease (red thread, fusarium  etc) these are fungal diseases that love warm, damp and dark environments. 

This is a general email to all my customers, I do understand that some lawns are to big to water, or you might not want to water the lawn due to water meters or may see it as a waste of water. Just a thought to finish on, your lawn is the biggest flower bed you have and all plants need watering at some point.