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.