Summer Lawn Care for Cool-Season Grasses

Summer heat and drought can really take a toll on cool-season grasses like bluegrass, fescues, and ryegrass. The reason is that cool-season grasses are actively growing in the winter. Once the temperatures rise and there is little rain, the grass seed has a natural tendency to become dormant and wait for more favorable conditions to grow.

Of course, having a dry, brown lawn during the summer isn’t usually a lawn owner’s preference. To keep your grass seed lawn green year round, you will have to supply some supplemental watering. You will also need to keep conditions favorable so your lawn doesn’t expend its limited energy.

Here are some basic suggestions for keeping a cool-season lawn fresh during the summer:

• Mow at a greater height than you usually would. There are countless benefits to doing this—the roots will grow deeper, the grass won’t have to spend as much energy trying to grow back from a cut, and taller grass will keep the soil cool and interfere with weed growth. A shorter lawn is simply not worth it during the summer.
• When you mow, don’t do it during the heat of the day, and always make sure that you are using sharp blades. A sharp blade means a cleaner cut, which means less of an injury that the grass leaves have to repair.
• Try to keep foot traffic to a minimum across your lawn. You will help prevent injuries as well as any thinning. A thinning lawn’s soil is more exposed to the sun, which increases the soil’s overall temperature.
• Don’t apply weed control on the lawn during the summer. It’s an additional stress that your lawn doesn’t need.
• Don’t apply nitrogen fertilizer either. Fertilizer will just encourage weak growth and rooting that won’t be able to be sustained over a long, dry summer.
• Don’t irrigate until you see signs of water deprivation. This might be every other day, but it is better to expose your lawn to that stress than not—it will be better prepared to survive any water restrictions you may need to adhere to later on.
• If your grass seed lawn does begin to turn brown, you have two options. You can either water it regularly for 2 weeks before you see new growth. Or, if your lawn is fairly mature and well established, you can let it remain dormant for the rest of the season. To keep the root system alive, be sure to apply 1 to 1 ½” of water to your lawn every 4 to 6 weeks.

While summertime may be difficult for maintaining a cool-season grass lawn, these tips will help make it possible. Once the temperatures cool down and there is more rain, you breath a sigh of relief as you watch your grass green up.