How To Get Your Lawn To Recover After A Hot Dry Summer. - GardenAdvice.co.uk (2024)

FAQs

How do I rejuvenate my lawn after a drought? ›

Your lawn might be left with thin, brown, or dead patches of grass following a drought. Get your green grass back by overseeding, reseeding, or resodding your lawn. You can sprinkle new grass seed by hand in the bare patches, or apply a new layer of grass seed across your lawn.

Start by raking dead grass spots to loosen the soil and remove the expired blades. Lightly rake the healthy areas to get rid of dying grass and aerate the soil for root stimulation. Once you have the land prepared, take a rotary seed spreader and lay down new grass seed over the dead spots.

If you're lucky your lawn will usually recover rapidly with renewed rainfall after the drought. If not, simply wait until the heat wave passes and begin your lawn care routine again.

Many kinds of grass die back late in the year when the weather is hot and dry. Quite often, the roots are still alive and it is just the above the ground portion that looks dead. If the roots get adequate water, they will often begin to put out new leaves, weather permitting.

If your turf is dormant, watering the grass can bring it back if it is responding to drought, but it could also require nutrients or is simply responding to excessive heat.

Left untreated, the wilted grass blades will turn into big, brown patches. You will be able to see the soil beneath the grass. These brown patches mean severe damage has occurred. Usually, the grass can recover, but the repair process is tedious.

If your grass is dormant due to a lack of water, it can turn green within a week of watering it again. If your grass is dormant due to cold temperatures, it should turn green again in early to mid-spring depending on your climate and the weather.

Heat stress can be confused with turf diseases and fungus, but it is typically pretty easy to identify. Areas of dry patches that may form in your lawn can start out as a gray color and will eventually turn brown.

Bermudagrass is extremely heat tolerant — daytime temperatures of 95 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit are optimal. Pennington Bermudagrass yields dense, resilient, heat-tolerant lawns. Zoysia grass, Centipede grass and Bahiagrass also tolerate high heat very well.

How can I help my grass recover? ›

Damaged or bare areas of lawn can be repaired by either sowing lawn seed or patching it with a piece of turf dug up from another part of the lawn, or new turf if available. The latter gives instant results, but sowing seed may be easier and cheaper if you have no spare turf to use as a patch.

If we struggle in this exceptional heat, then surely our grass does, too! So how long does it take for grass to come back to life after excessive heat? It can take up to 6 weeks for your grass to recover, with germination taking place between 2-3 weeks after a drought.

Bob Mann, National Association of Landscape Professionals. Everyone needs to understand that in times of drought, it's okay for lawns to turn brown, and in most cases the grass will bounce back when rain returns.

Avoid excess nitrogen fertilizer during hot, dry conditions. Overfertilizing will burn the lawn. Wait until early September to fertilize, when cooler temperatures occur.

Water Your Lawn Regularly

As you're trying to wake up your lawn, take some time every morning before the sun comes out to the water. During the time between dormancy and vibrancy, your lawn should receive at least 1 to 1.5 inches per week.