If you look around you’ll see grass finally beginning to fill in, grow, and come to color. It’s taken a while, given the conditions of April and May.
Cold nights, 14 inches of rain, and issues out of your control given the on-again, off-again, growing conditions. Just this past week we saw a temperature range of 68 to 90 degrees in a span of four days.
So now that it’s June, another plummet in the weekend weather, from 90 during the day, down to 50 during the night, and temps and conditions in the low 70s during the day. But we all know it’s sure to change, to high heat and humidity in the blink of an eye, because that’s what Ohio summers do.
You can flip a switch and moderate the conditions in your living room. Your lawn is not so lucky. That said, here’s three things to do this June to help ease your lawn into the hot weather of July and August, preserving color and health.
If you irrigate during the day, be sure and stop by mid-afternoon, giving turf plenty of time to dry before nightfall.
One, make sure it gets fed. You may not realize it, but the excess rains of April and May have leached a lot of available nutrients out of the soil. When it turns hot those plants are going to look for sustenance. An extra bit of nitrogen will help.
Two, raise your mower blade. This will do two things. If you’re accustomed to cutting at 3 inches, 3.5 inches will maintain better color while decreasing stress on the plant. This is temporary, of course, for a period of a couple of weeks, perhaps. Then you can go back to your normal height.
And three, if you have irrigation run it for a brief period during the heat of the day, between noon and 2 pm. This allows for evaporative cooling and helps the plants stay cooler. It will help with plant stress and bolsters plant vigor. Remember, though, cut out the water by mid-afternoon so plants have plenty of time to dry before nightfall. That helps lessen the chance of disease.
Given the turbulent conditions of this particular spring, if you do these three things you’ll help your lawn back to normal health and schedule without incident. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
