The Daily Show

With more days in a row over 30 Celsius than we've had in 70 years, it amazes me the number of homeowners I see on a daily basis with their sprinklers on in the middle of the day.

Please don't do this. 

First; a substantial portion of your watering efforts are lost to evaporation. Secondly; you run a greater risk of burning your lawn in these excessive temperatures. And, third; depending on your timing you can promote turf disease.

The recommended time for watering is early morning when the lawn can dry more evenly and the temperatures are more bearable.

Also, if a lawn is emerald green during this stretch of weather, I would bet it is being watered too much.

While it may be more aesthetically pleasing, it is not necessarily beneficial for the overall health of the grass. Watering daily creates a lazy lawn where the root zone is not forced to delve deeper for water sources making it more susceptible to weed and insect infestation.

A similar green can be achieved by watering deeply once, or at excessive times like these, twice a week while leaving the mower height at 3 1/2 inches, which is approximately above your ankle. 

If you still need to have the absolute green, then consider over-seeding with clover. Clover is more drought tolerant, feeds nitrogen into your lawn, does not need to be mowed frequently, and due to its horizontal root system, is avoided by damaging insects, most notably Chinch bugs who love the heat.

If you adopt all these practices, you may still have some heat stress in high-sun areas and places close to heat sources like pavement and patio stones, but in the long run, your lawn will be much healthier in its recovery.

Always look on the blight side.

For as long as I can remember I have been telling everyone to raise their mower height going into the summer to 3 1/2 inches and water their lawns deeply once or twice a week in extreme conditions.
Really 1 1/2 inches of water is essential to maintaining some health in the root zone. No matter if you have a sprinkler system or some other delivery method, a good benchmark of how long 1 1/2 inches is in time is simple. Place an empty tuna or cat food tin on the area being watered and however long it takes to fill the tin is how long you need to water that zone for.

But as the scorching 30 c days pile up and the natural precipitation disappears to nothing more than a brief passing shower, the lawns suffer no matter what you do.

And if you haven't been watering and cutting properly, it's too late to start mending fences now, that ship has sailed.

With the earlier fluctuations in temperatures in May/June another problem reared its ugly head- most notably- Ascochyta Blight. Although proper cutting and watering may not have prevented this turf disease, it would have gone a long way to lessening the effects. With the ever changing and unpredictable weather these two practices have never been so important than they are now.

So what to do?

Patience is key. Grass is a very resilient organism and will recover with time and TLC.
In severe cases, bagging your clippings when you can eventually cut again is recommended. Kelp-based products have also been known to help in recovery.

Hopefully when it does rebound we don't forget and repeat the same mistakes next year.

Mow and water your lawn properly and we can stop having this discussion.