News
Helping your lawn when temps are over 85°
Are you feeling the heat? Is your lawn feeling it?If you have cool season turf, especially Kentucky Bluegrass, I know that it is! I am talking to you just below the video links.If you have warm season turf, as long as you are irrigating, I’m sure your Bermuda, St Augustine, centipede, zoysia or bahia are loving this! I am talking to you down below.Either way, I have tips for both of you this week that include the Best Store Bought Lawn Fertilizer options that you can apply right now to help y...
Before and After - A Tail Of A Stressed Lawn
COOL SEASON LAWNS: I know that as I scan across our LCN groups, I can see lots of heat stress hitting you guys across much of the midwest and over to the northeast. Cool season lawns definitely struggle when it’s over 85 degrees. In case you missed it, I talked all about heat stress and watering in last week’s email which we turned into a blog post for you to review if you need to. Read it HERE.This week, I have an UPDATE from one of the Lawn Care Nuts featured in that post! One of the exampl...
Brown Spots EVERYWHERE - Your lawn is HUNGOVER
Cool Season Turf and Heat
I’ve used this term before but it’s worth a refresher: your cool season turf becomes “rain drunk” in spring. You could also call it “spring drunk” if you like. What I mean by this is the grass gets spoiled in spring with overcast skies (no direct sun), mild temperatures and rain, lots and lots of rain.Then, every single year, there comes a time when you get your first taste of the summer weather which is direct sun all day with zero clouds and temps over 80, up to...
Best Time To Water Grass In The Summer: You May Be Doing It All Wrong
How Much Should You Water The Lawn?
In general, lawns in summer need about ½” of water every 3 days or so. If it’s a little cooler where you are, say, in the high 70s, then you could get away with ½” every 3-4 days. If it’s hotter where you are, say, 85 and sun all day, then maybe every 2-3 days. If you are in south Texas where it’s over 95 in the summer, for sure every 2 days. Frequency is one key, but the other is to irrigate deep; meaning let the soil dry out in between waterings and when ...
Will Fertilizer Burn My Lawn In Summer?
For some reason, folks are highly concerned about summer lawn fertilizers and heat. I’m not sure where this stems from but I will help you out now: no, they will not burn your lawn in any greater fashion in heat than they will in cool temps.Heat doesn’t really make fertilizer more “volatile” or make it more “potent,” so have no fear. Now, I will say, if you are using a fertilizer like CarbonX (CX DIY) that has high amounts of straight urea nitrogen, you should not apply that to a wet or damp ...
Best Lawn Fertilizer for Summer | Part 2
Cool Season Lawns
Kentucky Bluegrass, Ryegrass, and Turf Type Tall Fescue - slow play in summer.Low nitrogen, higher potash and lots of micronutrients. Bio-Stimulants are always good too.
Warm Season Lawns
Centipede and Bahia - slow play in summer. Low nitrogen and for sure higher potash and micros.Bermuda, St Augustine, Zoysia - feel free to push harder with Nitrogen. Or you can slow play with more frequent, low N apps, but be sure to get potash and micros in there too.Bio-stimulants are goo...
Best Lawn Fertilizer for Summer | Part 1
If you are looking for the best lawn fertilizer for summer, this is the place to start. I give you the straight talk on what summer fertilizer to apply to each grass type and why.
Looking for a way to track your fertilizer usage? Get our free lawn app (iPhone or Android) where you can keep notes and even upload pics of your lawn all along the way.This is going to be a 2-part series. The first part below is going to talk about how your lawn will respond to summer stress depending upon grass ty...
Lawn Tips From Spring into Summer
You guys know I hammer on the importance of mowing often.Besides watering, it’s the most important thing you, as a DIY Lawn Farmer, can do.Difference is that with watering, we get a lot of help from natural rain but with mowing, it’s all on you, 100% of the time.Mowing Frequency vs Mowing HeightAs a general reminder, here are the recommended mowing heights for each grass type:Kentucky Bluegrass: 3-4”Perennial Ryegrass: 3-4”Turf Type Tall Fescue: 4”+St Augustine: 4”+Centipede: 3”Zoysia: 1-2”Be...
