The road to recovery

You are a conscientious lawn care giver. On top of your lawn service, you make sure your lawn is hydrated in tough summer conditions, you hang your Japanese Beetle pheromone traps annually, you even apply soapy water at the first sign of chinch bug stress near your gardens and sunny areas of turf. But that is not all; you raise your mowing height to 3 1/2 inches during the hotter months and if you do get crabgrass along the outer edges of your lawn you are quick to pull it up and seed the affected area come Labour Day, and....this post is not for you.

This post is for the homeowners who are away for long stretches during the summer months and those of you with busy lives where multitasking your lawn into the mix is not on the radar. Or maybe you are just one of those people who believe having a lawn service should be enough and your part was done once you paid the bill?

So here is what your lawn probably looks like at this moment; there are dead pockets and brown patches of grass, perhaps portions of your lawn are bare or soon will be once all the crabgrass dies. And because there are insect issues, weed seeds have been stirred up in your soil and the weeds are starting to spread as well. You were cutting your lawn short to avoid more frequent maintenance and inside of two days of heat your grass burned and never returned.

So what to do now?

Grass is resilient, and even when it suffers this treatment it is not too late to recover in the fall.
Fall fertilization, aeration and over-seeding are key elements  in the recovery process and can bring back your turf from the brink in many cases. In some instances a nematode application may be required as well to deter further damage next spring.

Perhaps the most important lesson in all this is to lean from previous mistakes and be more vigilant when it comes to your grass. After all it is curb appeal for your property. I have seen many a house for sale with a lawn in horrendous shape. It sends out a subliminal message that, if the homeowner doesn't have pride enough in their lawn then what is the inside of the house going to look like?

So moving into 2020 with lawn care, take it to heart and let next year truly be the year of hindsight.

Don't be doomed to more of this.