Summer Lawn Care

By summer, your turf will have been growing rapidly for a few weeks and may actually begin to slow down slightly. We've provided a few hints and tips in a handy summer lawn care guide. Let's get to it!

Now is the time to enjoy your lawn in the nice summer weather (hopefully!) but here are a few tips to keep it in good condition too.

Mowing

• Mow as and when necessary, this will depend on the weather conditions and the grass type but will probably be around once a week.
• If the weather is particularly hot and dry, reduce how frequently you mow the lawn as allowing it to grow a bit longer will make it more tolerant to the dry conditions.

Watering

• During dry periods give your lawn a bit of a hand. Rather than giving it a quick water every night, just give it a good soaking once or twice a week with a hosepipe or a sprinkler. This will encourage the roots to grow deeper and stronger.
• Water the lawn in the evenings once the sun is starting to set. This is when the water is most likely to soak into the soil rather than evaporate off the surface.
• If the turf is newly laid, you’ll need to give it a thorough watering every evening to encourage the turf to root in to the soil and stop it drying out.

Feeding

• During the summer, if the weather is hot, avoid applying a fertiliser to your lawn, as in hot temperatures the fertiliser will scorch the lawn, turning your lovely green lawn brown and patchy.

Weeding

• The nice sunny weather might be making your grass grow, but the weeds are probably benefiting too! Remove them by hand when the pop up or use a lawn weed killer to target them.

Checking for Pests

• Pests often pop up at this time of year. If areas begin to yellow it may be just due to the weather, but keep an eye out for any pests such as grubs or leatherjackets that may be causing damage.
• If any pests are spotted, check you local garden centre for the appropriate product to treat them and look at our blog on lawn diseases and pests for more details.

Lawn Diseases

During the summer, especially if conditions are warm and wet, your lawn might develop a disease, but don’t worry, they are fairly easy to fix! The most common disease this time of year is Red Thread

• Red Thread caused by the fungi that is naturally present in the lawn and appears as patches of pink / red grasses and although it kills the grass blades, it shouldn’t harm the roots if treated correctly.

• Regular feeding of the lawn will help reduce the chance of Red Thread reappearing in your lawn by keeping the grass healthy.

• You can treat Red Thread with a lawn disease control product, or often, a fertiliser high in Nitrogen will help remedy the problem. High Nitrogen lawn feeds encourage grass growth, meaning healthy grass will begin to grow from the roots and the disease can then be mowed out.

Dry Patches

• If we have a long, hot summer with not much rainfall, brown patches in your lawn may be due to something called Dry Patch.
• This happens when the soil underneath the turf becomes bone dry, and the soil actually becomes water repellent. If frequent watering does not improve the brown patches on your lawn, this may be why!
• It is a bit of a mystery how soil can start repelling water but you can fix this by using a wetting agent, which you then apply to the affected areas.