Caring for Your Lawn During the Summer Heat

When Colorado moves into the summer months, it becomes necessary to protect your lawn from excessive heat.  The warmer months can cause lawn damage, often leaving brown patches in your yard.  There are ways to bring your lawn back to healthy, you just have to take a little care.  Although, yards with extensive damage may need to be reseeded, so if more than half of your lawn shows brown patches, consider reseeding to discourage weeds. Weeds make the lawn even harder to protect, so you want to avoid them or remove them promptly.  Below are some tips to help you protect your lawn from summer heat.

Prevent Lawn Damage With Proper Maintenance
 
The very best way to prevent damage to your lawn from heat is to maintain proper care before summer comes around.  If you have been underwatering your yard, your lawn is way more vulnerable to damage from a heatwave.  If you are uncertain that you are not watering your grass enough, take a look at the leaf blades of your lawn.  If the leaf blades are turning a blue-gray color, or if they are beginning to fold over, those are signs your lawn is underwatered.  A well irrigated yard has grass blades that bounce back to an upright position if they are stepped on. Also, water the lawn with more water, but with less times during the day. This allows grass to grow deeper roots, which means they the grass blades can draw more water from the soil. 
 
Repairing a Damaged Lawn
 
If you find that there has already been some heat damage to your lawn, there are ways to encourage regrowth.  First, pull all unwanted weeds, and do a thorough dethatching.  A dethatcher is a device that removes thatch from your lawn.  Give your grass a good watering after you dethatch.  Use core aeration to loosen the soil and lawn thatch.  Then, place grass seeds over any bare areas.  You will want to lightly water the lawn daily after that, to keep the seeds moist, but do not saturate the soil.  Also, it is recommended that you water early in the morning, this will give the lawn time to soak up the water before the summer heat comes out and dries the water up.
 
Other Methods to Care For Your Lawn During Summer
 
To prepare your yard for the summer months, start to reduce how often you mow, and also raise the mower’s cutting height.  When you do this, it puts less stress on the lawn.  Your grass will then be better equipped to handle hot weather.  When you cut your lawn regularly and short, the grass puts more energy into leaf blade regrowth.  Try not to mow during a heatwave, and never cut more than one third to one half of its total height.  By employing these methods, you will create a lawn that have great leaf regrowth and healthy root system.  You may also consider using a fertilizer during the warmer months, nitrogen found in fertilizer will give your grass a more green appearance.