Gardening Advice & Tips for Irish Gardeners

Who would have thought that it would be the dry conditions and not the usual rain that put a halt to my grass cutting plans. This summer the 2 weeks of dry weather has caused grass to dry up and go dormant. In these conditions, thest lawn care tip I can give is to leave your grass uncut until it rains again. If you cut your grass in a drought it will put excessive stress on the grass as you remove the small amount of water left in the grass leaf blade. Cutting grass in dry conditions will lead to even more water loss as a cut leaf blade will lose water quicker than a leaf blade that is fully intact.

If you are able, then setting up and running a water irrigation system once a week over your lawn will greater improve growing conditions and prevent your grass from going dormant and turning yellow.

One thing to note is that lawns generally recover very quickly after a drought and the sight of yellow patches and yellow verges, which look as though someone has maliciously gone at it with weed killer, will soon be a thing of the past. Once the rain returns, grass quickly recovers.

If you must cut your grass during or directly after a dry spell there are some things to note. First, be sure not to cut your grass too short. Generally grass cutting would follow the 2/3 rule. That is to be sure not to cut more than 2/3 of grass in one cut. However in dry spells You should only cut the grass down by ½ its original height.

Secondly it would be recommended that you mulch your lawns. By not collecting your grass cuttings you can reduce the rate of water absorption from your grass which is obviously crucial in a drought.

Other tasks to tackle once the rain returns would be to aerate your lawn,. In the dry weather the soil can become very hard and impossible to aerate, with the rain the soil will loosen up making conditions more suitable for using a hollow tine aerator.

You can start applying your lawn weed killer such as dicophar or hydrol again after a drought. These weed killers need to be applied when your weeds are actively growing.

Its not too late to feed your lawn and an application of Ammonium Nitrate or other nitrogen based fertilizer can be applied every 4 weeks until the middle of September.

So worry not, because with some time and a little effort, your lawn will be back to it’s best. I think we can all agree that a yellow lawn is a small price to pay for 2 long weeks of glorious sunshine