| we are now in summer here houston, please help me keep my grass green. my house was built on a vacant lot in 2001. there are older homes in this area, but i'm one of a few who has to water grass or it dies. this season i'm water in the morning and i wsnt to fert please tell me what is best to use. |
| I suspect your lawn is mostly comprised of cool season grasses and that's why it's difficult to keep green in the summer time. Warm season grasses such as Bermuda will remain green during the summertime but tend to brown out in the cooler fall and winter months; perennial rye or bluegrass will be greenest from fall though spring but tend to go dormant in the hot summer months. So the best way to have a green lawn almost all year around is to have a turf of both cool and warm season grasses. Now that the weather is hot, it may be difficult to get grass seeds to sprout and grow so you may need to wait until this fall to overseed your lawn. If you think you can keep the lawn watered well enough for grass to germinate and grow, try overseeding now with the heat loving bermuda grass seeds. This fall, overseed with perennial ryegrass. It will green up just as the bermuda is going dormant. Late next spring you might want to overseed with bermuda again, just to make sure you have a nice stand of both cool and warm season grasses. One of the best ways to help your lawn survive the heat is to water it deeply but infrequently to force the roots to grow deep in the soil. If you water everyday you encourage shallow rooted turf that will show drought stress if it isn't watered every single day. If instead you water deeply and slowly (about one inch of water), the roots will penetrate deeply and be able to survive without browning out. Try watering deeply every 3 days and see if that doesn't help your lawn green up. Then change your watering schedule to once every 4 days. When fall weather arrives, water only once a week or so. I hope this information helps you get your lawn on the right track! |
