What we’re noticing:
- We got some shots of rain over the holiday weekend but not much to significantly improve lawn conditions. Between 0.25 and 1″ within our service area with most in the 0.5-0.75″ range. This is enough to not only keep dormant grass alive but also green it up a little bit but it is not enough to make for a lush or thriving lawn on its own.
- For the first weekend this year, I didn’t mow my personal lawn which doesn’t have a sprinkler system. It’s still green thanks to ProLawns, mowing high and strategic sprinkler use but it doesn’t need to be mowed.
- In the month of June, our service area received 3-4″ less rain than a normal summer. It is dry! We got less than 25% of our normal rainfall National Weather Service
- Despite the weather, lawns are looking pretty good.
What we’re doing:
- We’re working to finish up all the great stuff we’re doing this round from Premium Granular Fertilizer to Grub Prevention.
- We’re also going to get out to do our stress-relieving and recovery aid soil improvement applications.
- Lastly, we’ll be out doing mosquito and insect pest control this week.
What you can be doing:
Without a sprinkler system:
- Continuing mowing as high as possible. Like I mentioned in “What we’re noticing”; without regular irrigation, grass growth has slowed significantly due to the weather. If the lawn doesn’t need it, don’t mow and stress it unnecessarily. Be sure to not just “skip a week” and then cut way too much off the following week. This would stress the lawn much worse. Stick to the 1/3 rule where no more than 1/3 of the grass blade is cut off when you mow. The ideal scenario is to transition into a ~10 day mowing schedule until we get more regular rain.
- Continue to run sprinklers on the full sun and poor soil areas as needed to maintain health and color. Watering Flow Chart. Keep an eye out for pre-drought stressed purpling of the turf. Reference the last section of this page for visual cues to your turf needing water.
With a sprinkler system:
- Weekly mowing should still be perfectly appropriate and we recommend mowing as high as possible as well to conserve water and maintain turf robustness. Even though we got a bit of rain, we’re still well below average for the growing season.
- With the rain we had and if your lawn doesn’t show any signs of stress (yellow or purple) a normal irrigation schedule should be fine. Watering Flow Chart