What we’re noticing:
- The whole story this week is the rain. We’ve gotten a normal amount and tonight more is forecast. Friday evening:
- Lawns are recovering even though we’re still in Severe Drought
- We saw this nearly identically last year though (wet/”normal” August) and went into the driest September every recorded.
- 8/9/22 “half our service area in severe drought” – currently (2023) 100% is
- 8/16/22 “normal weather”
- 8/23/22 “normal weather”
- 8/30/22 “prefect weather!” 🤦♂️
- 9/5/22 “rain taps shut off” -> then into driest September ever recorded
What we’re doing:
- We finished up our regular 3rd visit of fertilizing and weed control
- We’re doing our 4th of 5 mosquito and insect control visits – we anticipate this to get popular with the rain we’ve had
- We’re a week into our Fall renovation season which includes aeration, overseeding and soil improvement. We anticipate 1-2 weeks left.
- We’re starting our fall application – it’s earlier and different from most companies for a very specific reason. We wrote about it last year here.
What you can be doing:
- Even though the lawn looks good now please consider your renovation work to make it better and more robust for next year (and years to come)
- Kentucky Bluegrass (the most common in our areas and most common in full sun settings – what got most hurt by drought the last 4 years) requires up to one month to germinate and another month to generate a healthy root system.
- Our first hard freeze (very tough or deadly on immature grass) happens Oct 15th on average.
- Take Oct 15th and subtract two months 😬
- Water the yellow areas to see if those stubbornly dormant areas can be pulled out or if they will need seeding
- You can mow a notch lower than [absolute highest] – don’t shock the lawn by going down more than one notch per week. If your lawn isn’t coming out of dormancy well, keep the mower high. Again; we’re still in Severe Drought.
