How to Care for a Lawn in August

Sara Ipatenco shares seven different ways you can do in August to improve your lawn.

1. Pull weeds when you notice them. A weed here or there won’t damage your lawn, but a large number of weeds will suck the moisture from your grass, which needs adequate water during the hot days of August.
2. Mow your lawn using the longest blade setting possible. The hot days of August can bake your grass, causing it to turn brown. Mowing the grass longer helps provide shade to the blades and also helps the lawn retain moisture.
3. Aerate the lawn if it is compacted and water pools rather than soaking in. Rent an aerator from a local home improvement store or hire a lawn company to do it for you. The holes left by the aerator allow more oxygen and moisture to reach the roots of the lawn, preventing the grass from turning brown or dying.
4. Water your lawn two to four times per week. Use a sprinkler to provide each area of your lawn with about 6 inches of moisture. Water in the early morning or late evening so the majority of the water reaches the roots rather than evaporates in the hot summer air.
5. Apply nitrogen-based fertilizer two or three days after you water your lawn. The nitrogen encourages the grass to continue growing. This will help prevent browning and bare spots.
6. Consider “grasscycling” as an alternative to traditional fertilizer. To grasscycle, mow your lawn but allow the clippings to fall back into the grass rather then collecting them and throwing them away. The nutrients in the clippings will absorb into the soil when you water the lawn, which feeds the roots. It also helps the lawn retain moisture despite the heat.
7. Sprinkle grass seed in bare patches and areas that have turned brown in the August heat. Water the grass seeds daily until they sprout. Do this in the early morning or late evening so most of the water reaches the seeds rather than evaporates.

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Photo from www.livescience.com

You may think your lawn needs less care in the fall because the grass grows more slowly. The opposite is true. Your grass is busy absorbing moisture and nutrients for the winter season. Give your lawn more attention this fall to have beautiful grass in the spring. Use these six tips from Popular Mechanics to help your efforts.

Keep on Mowing
Continue to water and mow your lawn, as needed, throughout the fall. Then as the season ends, drop the mower’s blade to its lowest setting for the last two cuttings of the year. That will allow more sunlight to reach the crown of the grass, and there will be less leaf to turn brown during the winter.

Aerate the Soil
Fall is also an ideal time to aerate your lawn so that oxygen, water, and fertilizer can easily reach the grass’s roots. You can rent a gas-powered, walk-behind lawn aerator. The self-propelled machine will quickly punch holes into the soil and extract plugs of dirt.

Rake the Leaves
I know raking leaves is no one’s idea of fun, but it’s important to remove fallen leaves from your lawn as soon as possible. Don’t wait until all the leaves have fallen from the trees to start raking. If you do, the leaves will become wet from rain and morning dew, stick together, and form an impenetrable mat that if left unmoved will suffocate the grass and breed fungal diseases.

Fertilize for Future Growth
Most lawn experts agree: If you fertilize your lawn only once a year, do it in the fall. Grass leaves grow much more slowly as the weather turns cool, but the grass roots and rhizomes continue to grow quickly. (Rhizomes are the horizontal plant stems that lie just beneath the soil’s surface; they produce the blades of grass above and the roots below.) A fall application of fertilizer delivers essential nutrients for the grass to grow deep roots now and to keep nutrients on reserve for a healthy start next spring.
Wait until mid-to-late fall, then apply a dry lawn fertilizer to all grassy areas; be careful not to miss any spots.

Fill in Bald Spots
Autumn is also a great time of year to fix any bare, bald spots in your lawn. The quickest, easiest way to do this is with an all-in-one lawn repair mixture. Sold at most garden shops and home centers, this ready-to-use mixture contains grass seed, a special quick-starter lawn fertilizer, and organic mulch.

Weed Control
If broad leaf weeds like dandelions have taken over your lawn, now’s the time to fight back. Weeds, like most plants, are in the energy-absorbing mode during the fall. They’re drinking in everything that comes their way, including weed killers. Apply an herbicide now and the weeds won’t return in the spring.

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Know how to mow
If you’re ready for healthy, green grass, it’s time to commit to that lawn mower. While you might be tempted to cut the grass super short and stretch out the time between mowing, this won’t give you the green grass you covet. Grass that’s cut super short grows faster — and requires more water and herbicides to remain healthy and green. Not to mention that longer grass grows deeper roots, giving it the strength to remain healthy with less effort. Never cutting more than a third of the grass’s length at a time. Additionally, you should make sure your mowing blades are sharpened at the beginning of the season. Dull blades can rip grass instead of cutting it clean, which can encourage disease and pests.

Don’t mess with wet grass
Sure, your lawn needs to be watered on a regular basis. But when grass is wet, it’s best to leave it alone. Mowing wet grass can compact the soil and suffocate the roots, which in turn can kill the lawn you’re trying to perfect. You should also never let the sun go down on a wet lawn. Grass needs to dry out prior to dew falling, since the constant moisture can cause rot and disease.

Water deeply and infrequently
When temperatures rise, you may be tempted to sprinkle the lawn on a near- constant basis. But frequent, shallow watering actually encourages shorter root growth, which prevents grass from withstanding disease and drought. Instead, water more infrequently, but water deeply. According to Scotts Miracle-Gro, giving your lawn an inch of water per week is a good rule of thumb for the summer months.

Be judicious with the fertilizer
Yes, fertilizer can help your lawn thrive. That said, using too much fertilizer can encourage your grass to grow faster than you’d like — requiring increased mowing, watering and pesticides to keep it healthy. Not to mention that excessive fertilizer use can be harmful to the environment. To choose the right fertilizer, msn.com recommends sending a soil sample to a local lab once every four years to determine its contents. The amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, salts and other matter in the soil will help you determine exactly which fertilizer to use.

Shake up the routine
Ever get tired of mowing repeatedly in the same pattern? Well, so does your grass. Mowing the same direction over and over again can actually compact soil and produce ruts and other problems. If you tend to mow right to left, horizontally, get a little crazy and take things vertically and from the left.

Conclusion
Use this tips to have a green lawn in the Minnesota hot summer month.

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During the cold, frost and freezing months of winter grass goes into a dormant stage. It stops growing and relies on the starch stored in its root system to survive. While the grass may appear dead and need little attention it also is the time when your lawn is the most vulnerable to damage.

When the grass blades freeze they become brittle. The grass blades can snap off like broken sticks when walked upon. This is not harmful if only the top of the grass is snapped but unfortunately when you walk on the lawn during this time you can crush the grass crown.

The crown is the life center of grass growth. It is the thick, whitish part of the grass that grows along the top of the soil. This is the birthing point for all new grass growth. While it is safe to cut the top of the grass as we do when mowing and it quickly recovers the same cannot be said for damaging the grass crowns.

Damaged and crushed crowns will not survive. This is why it is important not to drive on the lawn during the cold months unless a thick layer of snow has piled up providing cushioning. If the lawn is simply frozen but not snow covered even walking across it can be harmful.

Another thing that can be harmful to lawns is shoveling snow onto the lawn in heavy piles. Snow that falls naturally is not dense and compacted as packed shoveled snow can be. While some of this cannot be helped it is a good idea if you can to throw the snow as far as you can and disperse it at different levels.

And be careful about building Frosty the snowman! Yep, good, old Frosty can be a hazard if built too big and solid and left on the lawn for a long period of time. The light and fluffy white stuff that falls from the heavens gets very heavy when molded into big round balls. The weighted, compacted snow pushes down hard on the soil and packs it down. This compaction makes it difficult for the organisms in the soil to survive. When the organisms cannot breathe, drink or eat they will die as well.

I’m not suggesting kids should not have the fun of building snowmen. But it might be a good idea when Frosty starts to melt to break up the snow balls and disperse some of that weight around.  Compacted soil is not a good thing. The only organisms that seem to thrive well with it are weeds! Hard, compacted earth is the leading cause for weed growth.

One more Jack Frost tip before I end this bit of winter lawn gloom. Snow Mold. This is a fungal disease that can occur when the snow melts or from constant cold, wet moisture such as fog. It is not common and usually happens on weak or new lawns that have not built up healthy crown and root systems. Lawns that were fertilized heavily with nitrogen too close to the freeze period  are especially vulnerable to this disease. It is  also a cause of compacted snow. Keep Frosty to a medium size and break him up when he starts to become an ice chunk and all should be well!

Thanks to Grassstitcher.com for these words of advice.  

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All the water needs to be drained from your system.  What water remainds in your system can freeze, expand and then crack the PVC piping or the sprinkler heads. Freezing water in the backflow assembly will also damage the internal components.

To minimize the risk of freeze damage to your irrigation system, you’ll need to “winterize” your irrigation system.  This is not a project for the average “do-it-yourselfer.” In order to blow all of the water from the system, you will need an air compressor big enough to do the work. This is one job that is better done by professionals.   As part of their winterization process, t he professionals will guarantee that you will not have any freezing problems over the winter month or when you go to turn on your system in the spring.

For more details about winterizing your lawn system, give Dale a call. Call 651-402-4992.  Or using the Contact Us Form below, with your Name,  and Email Address  to send an email with a phone number and a good time to talk with you.

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