Working Against Yourself – 8 Lawn Sins
(and their fixes!)

Nothing is worse than working hard only to find out that things that you’re doing are giving you the exact opposite results to what you were working toward. Today we’ll cover some of the all too common problems that cover this exact subject, as it relates to lawns in Utah and the Intermountain Area. We know you do these things, even when you’ve been told otherwise, but now is a good time to look at the results of what you’ve been doing this summer and discuss the “whys” while it’s still fresh to see. As summer draws to a close, it’s a good time to evaluate the current status of your lawn and how the past season has gone. In many areas of Utah and the West for that matter, we had a very wet beginning to spring followed by a very hot and dry summer with little to no rainfall. That is important for a few reasons. First, the very wet month of May was the prime growing season for turf and with the very frequent rainfall and low temps, our plants set their root systems very shallow (they go where the water is) during their aggressive growth period. That set the stage for struggling in the sun baked afternoons of the next three months, quickly drying the soil where the roots had set, causing lawns to struggle mightily under normal care conditions.

Keeping that in mind, there were practices that exaggerated problems and compounded lawn issues, mostly by our own doing, essentially working against ourselves to achieve our desired end results. Here’s the top list and what we can do to repair the problems and set ourselves up for better results to close the season and carry through into next year.

#1 - Mow Height

This is by far and away one of the most prevalent abuses people do to work against themselves as it relates to their lawns. To understand the problem, we have to understand how vertical growing, cool season turf plants (what 99.9 percent of you have with bluegrass, fescue and rye blended turfs) are structured and what happens to them when we cut them like a horizontal structured plant. As you can see in the illustration, what makes a vertical growth grass stand upright is the stalk, or culm. Often a white or yellowish (depending on the plant type) color as you can see on the mature plant on the left. So what happens when we cut the lawn to a “golf course” height, because we like to keep it short? We take away much of the leaf surface, our green part of the plant, leaving the structural parts of the plant visible. To the untrained eye, this can translate to pale or dry lawns, prompting more watering or more fertilizer to a plant that is now in stress from having the majority of it photosynthesizing parts removed. That creates new problems, as we’ll discuss below in the water and fertilizer areas.



Additionally, by removing so much leaf surface on a vertical growing plant, we create a new problem where we are now not shading the plants roots and the soil around it. In the hot summer months, exposing that soil to additional sunlight dramatically increases it’s temperature, evaporating water quickly and creating additional stress to your cool season turf, both through water loss and a temperature rise (with the addition to leaf loss). The additional sunlight also breaks down preemergent weed controls, shortening their life span dramatically, which combined with the weakened turf, strong sunlight at the soil line and now probable overwatering, invites an explosion of warm season weeds like crabgrass and spurge to move into the landscape, particularly in sun drenched areas and areas near heat soaks, like sidewalks, driveways and roads.

I know the little caveat you have in the back of your mind is “Why don’t golf courses have this problem then?” It’s simple. On greens, they are NOT USING THE SAME TYPE OF GRASS! Creeping bentgrass, a horizontal grower, bright green in color, is what they are using. It’s not in the same family as what you have on your lawn. It’s not even cut with same style mower that you use at home (rotary)!On fairways, where more common turf types are used, they never let the stalk get to the height of your turf by mowing every 2-3 days, removing only tiny bits of blade at a time and keeping the plant stunted. Paired with heavy, full time daily maintenance, hand watering, bi weekly feeds in some cases, growth regulators and a host of other maintenance practices and how that turf is cared for is not even relative to the normal home or even commercial property practice.

Ignore what you see as recommendations for mow heights from other areas of the country that have higher humidities and more frequent rainfall during the summertime. You need to be in protection mode when the heat is on. 2 1/2 inches is not optimum when evaporation rate can take the available water in the top three inches of soil in 2 hours. Mowers should be set at their highest or second to highest mow settings. You lawn WILL take a uniform, plush look at those heights as soon as the grass all grows to that level. A good plan with good decision making and discipline to stay to your plan is what pays off with the big results.

If the golf look is something you just can’t live without, we’d suggest killing off your existing lawn, bringing in the new turf type and preparing for a load of time and expense to keep it at that level. For the rest of us, there is a saying among smart commercial contractors that make their money on the best results for the least amount of effort and cost and that is, “Deep is money”, a phrase that can pay big dividends at home for you too with decreased water and fertilizer costs along with fewer weeds, thicker turf and a better, darker color from more leaf surface being visible.

#2 - Dull blades and clumping grass

While we’re covering mowing, we should talk about two other items often overlooked that can lead to additional problems on your turf, dull lawn mower blades and leaving grass clumps behind after you mow. Dull blades often go undiagnosed although the damage that they do is readily seen. Most people will mistake the shredded tops of the turf for a dry lawn. What’s really happening is that the tips are frayed or injured and die back to the spot the leaf is whole again, as in the picture. Most homeowners can go the season on a good, quality bevel sharpening. If your grass is frequently wet when you mow, you can cut the time that blade stays sharp to about ¼ of the season. Commercial contractors often cannot go through a week without a resharpen. If in doubt, go have a close up look at individual grass blade. Pull a few and inspect. If they are frayed or shredded on the top, it’s time for a resharpen. Grass can expend a lot of energy and lose a lot of water attempting to repair this kind of injury. The fix is quick and simple.



Clumps. Those of you who have read this site before know we promote mulching (not side discharging) mowing over all other forms but unfortunately, if your machine is underpowered, you are trying to cut too much grass off at one time, have a lot of buildup under the deck or in wet grass, dreaded clumping can begin to occur. Clumping grass can be from too much growth between mowing, overly full baggers, wet grass or even nasty side discharging as well. Why should you care? Those clumps of grass act just like mulch does in your flower beds. It blocks sunlight from reaching what’s below and traps moisture. That’s great in a flower bed, not so much so in thick stands of grass. It results in heavily thatched dead spots in your turf that can become the home to a variety of insects (or even rodents if the area is large enough), but can also become a foothold for fungus/disease issues that can spread through the turf.

The solution? Don’t cut off too much grass a time(by raising the blade for the first cut or increasing the frequency of mowing while growth rates are high), control growth through smart water and fertilizer practices, use a blower or rake to disperse the clippings or make another pass with the mower or as a last ditch option, bag it up. Just don’t let large clipping piles remain on your turf.

#3 - Watering

Killing it with kindness or complete and total neglect. This is where the vast majority of people will fall when it comes to watering their lawns. We’ve been on lawns so wet, they felt like walking on quicksand, ready to suck a boot off and reeked of rot. Others have been so dry, the soil is cracking open and have no distinguishable difference underfoot from the driveway or sidewalk.

Water audit studies have shown the typical Utah household user puts about 3 times as much water on the lawn as it actually needs. That means your water bill is 3 times higher than it needs to be! Those golf courses you admire? They are falling into the 95-105% range compared to your 300%, with shorter cut, more frequently injured grass!!

So how much should you be watering to keep the lawn going nicely without sending the water bill into the stratosphere?

The good news is, you don’t have to guess. In Utah, we control the amount of water on the landscape, for the most part, because of lack of summertime rain during the average growing season means we use irrigation systems. We control when, how long and how much flow they put down during run cycles. Having that control, all we’re lacking is information on how much is lost through wind, heat and low humidity added to normal plant use. If we have that information, w can make good decisions on clock settings, even if we don’t have moisture sensors in the turf (which is still the ultimate way of watering only when you need to, a topic for another day). Fortunately for us, monitoring is being done and calculated water loss data is available for your use at this site. That will get you there on the specifics.

If you’re looking for something a little easier to remember, just remember this rule. Deep and infrequent is the key to happy plants. Bluegrass turf can have roots as deep as 12 inches, Tall Fescue as deep as 4 FEET! In a typical lawn we pull soil samples on, the roots will be 2-4 inches. Why? Because that’s where the water is when you water frequently and roots go where the easiest water is. Add to that the trees, shrubs and flowers that are also likely on the same sprinkler zones as your turf and you start to see where shallow roots start to be the general theme in your landscape.

Why care about that? When the heat comes on, those top few inches of soil will dry fairly quickly, especially if there is wind and low humidity (our norm). That means dry roots by mid afternoon and that equals unhappy plants. Plants rooted in that next 8 inches of soil, if it’s been watered to that depth, are happily sipping and chugging along. They are the tougher, more summer resistant plants that keep even growth all summer, continually improving instead of dying back, allowing competition(weeds) and forcing you into a catch up mode in the fall and the following spring. Quality turfs that eventually need no weed controls are always improving, not on a seasonal rollercoaster. Water habits are a big part of that! The flip side? Why not water daily and deeply? You saw us mention rot above, right? Roots need oxygen almost as much as they need water. You can literally drown your plants (which is common with clay soils) by not allowing time between cycles to dry out. This is the “infrequent” part of the equation coming into play. Also, by pairing that dry out cycle with a deep watering, you are encouraging the plant roots to dig deeper to follow the water, creating stronger, hardier plants that aren’t as susceptible to temperature swings.

Now here you are still wondering how to set your clock, right? Here are our general recommendations. They are based on popups that throw a 12 foot diameter at 4 gallons per minute and rotors throwing the same 4 gallons per minute on a 30 foot radius with head to head coverage on your system. Adjustments will have to be made for heavy clay(less) or very sandy soils(more), slopes(split cycles), wind(more) ,shade(less) and sprinkler overlap(more/less). If in doubt which direction you have to go, simply placing a series of same sized cups in different areas on the lawn and running a cycle will tell you a whole bunch about how much water is going where. Those caveats in place, here are the recommended baselines for programming:

Temperature 50s -70s – 1 time per 7-10 days, 28 minutes for popups, 44 for rotors, per zone. Water as early in the AM as possible when wind is more calm and temperatures both air and soil, are at their lowest, losing the least amount to evaporation.

80-90 degrees- twice per week, same durations as above. May have to add a day for wind areas, sandy soils or increase durations for poor coverage of irrigation system.

90-100 degrees- add a day, same rules as above apply.

100 and up – add one more day, total of 4 days. Rest of the rules above apply.

Allow 24 hours after a water cycle for your regular mowing day. This will allow good drying for even dispersal of cuttings while having the turf still moist enough to stand up well to be cut.

As the temps come back down, reverse the added days and continue to always be encouraging your roots to get their water as deep as you can. Once we hit freezing temps in the overnight hours, shift your watering to the points in the day where you will not be forming ice, but are not in the warmest part of the day either, maximizing your water return. You should continue infrequent watering ,even below 50 degrees, about every 14-21 days until snowfall to make sure you are protecting the root systems of not only your turf, but your trees and shrubs as well.

#4 - Trimming

As a turf manager I have a love/hate relationship with string trimmers. I love the speed at which they work and the finished look to turf after they’ve been used. I hate how easily it is to misuse them, particularly by resting the head in the grass while you trim. You’ve all seen and probably done what we call a “ramped” edge where you use the trimmer to cut areas real short and “feather” it back into the lawn that was mowed. Whoever was responsible for making this in vogue, I’d like to punch them in the brain! If you read the mowing sections above, all the same reasons against shortcutting turf apply doubly to the ramping method. Ramping is even worse because the string tips often strike the crown of the grass plant, often killing the plant altogether. If dirt if flying, you might as well be using Roundup! Pair this with the fact that trimming is mostly done near hard surfaces that the mower can’t reach, or worse, to “finish” an edge (This is what edgers are for folks!) and now you’re adding the hottest, driest soil in your lawn to completely taking away grass competition and shading of that soil.

Guess what comes next…that’s right, those horizontal growth heat loving weeds. Crabgrass, spurge, chickweed, etc., etc. All because you scalped with a trimmer, maybe hoping that by cutting that short you wouldn’t need to do it for a few weeks. If that’s your reason, kill the space with Roundup or its equivalents, then at least you can control the weeds as well.

Proper trimmer use is to trim at the same height as your mower is cutting. It takes some practice and skill, but most people can do it, if they make the effort. Use a shoulder strap if you need to, but don’t drag the trimmer on the grass and do not tilt it to make your cuts. The payoff is no piles of ugly weeds on all your edges and scalp lines forcing you into expensive chemical warfare.

#5 - Fertilization

We cover fertilization in detail in other articles on this site, so we’ll just focus on the high N (nitrogen) levels that many are pumping onto their lawns during the year, what it’s doing and the steps for correction.

N is your vegetative “pusher”. We want it to keep good strong leaf growth happening on the turf to keep it healthy and rebounding from stress and injury. But in the world of a little must be good, so a lot must be really good, most people have gotten to the point where so much N is being applied that they are actually working against themselves. Various grass types have needs and optimum rates for the season, but we’ll choose bluegrass as the example, since it is the most prevalent. Bluegrass needs 2.5 pounds of actual N per 1000 sq feet per growing season. It’s optimum growth is achieved at 4 lbs N per season. Most bagged fertilizers recommend rates that are 1-1.25 lbs per 1000 actual N (not the actual product, those rates are much higher as N is only a percentage of the whole) per application. The national spray companies apply 1-1.5 lbs actual N per application. When we start to do a little math here, if the bag suggests 4 times per season we fall in the 4-5 lbs actual N per season mark. OK, a bit heavy if we get much in the way of natural N (you know those summer lightning shows? Read more about it in the other articles), but what happens if we are applying that bag monthly (8 per year) or worse, bi weekly without cutting the rates drastically?! What about the big boy sprayers? 7-8 visits per season at that rate?! That’s 7-12 lbs actual N per season, as much as 300% of optimum, over 500% of need!

What does that mean?

First, you need to know we are not adamantly against monthly visits by a technician, if he’s there for more than 4 and a half minutes and can give you decent advice. From a marketing perspective, it’s a great way to add additional revenues with the clients you have. From a turf management perspective, if all they’ve got is a splash and dash in store for you a high N rate every time, it’s a total nightmare. You need to know that in the world of fertilizer, what people expect is to see it green and fast, regardless of all the other things they might be doing that work against that end goal. The easiest and cheapest way to do that is to make it long (more leaf surface) quick, with fast releasing N.

However, two to three weeks of hundred mile an hour growth just stresses plants that may not be able to sustain that kind of vegetative growth with their existing root structure. You’ll see this manifest in yellowing of the grass (nitrogen induced chlorosis) or even fertilizer burn, which can be just tips or total crown up burnout. Add to that the extra grass you are trying to remove and disperse with each mowing, the extra water required to support the growth, layover and/or shading of other turf plants, which leads to thinning of the turf (think grass in the shade of your house or trees) and you start to see where this strategy works against the long term goals of growing a thicker, healthier turf that takes the minimum required maintenance and water to sustain.

We suggest you find programs with more balance, lower N rates, slower releasing fertilizers that work with your full goals rather than against them. Ask questions, recognize hype, set aside your need for instantly and adjust your other practices to compliment your program and soon you’ll be seeing measureable results that keep you looking great year round instead of weeks here and there.

#6 - Compaction

Kids, dogs, water, mowers…they can all add up to compaction, packing of the soil, especially on heavy clays. While most people know they’ll have to deal with that after heavy snow loads, very few will consider summer compaction issues that should be dealt with during the fall, the second, and some say, most important grow season for turf. If it feels hard under foot, if it hard to get a shovel or even a screwdriver into and the turf is looking a little sad and thin, you’ve got a compaction problem.

The fix is just like it is in the spring, core aeration, (not spiking, spiking compresses the soil in the bottom and sides of the hole.) We’ll assume that you know spring aeration is not a suggestion, it’s a must for healthy turf, regardless of soil type.

If you fall aerate, that is also a great time for reseeding/overseeeding thin or bare patches caused by compaction or damage from any of the other common causes listed here. By seeding, adding a starter fertilizer then aerating, you ensure good contact for the new seed along with air, water and nutrients reaching the root zone (and triggering rhizome and stolon growth points) on the existing turf. Prime turf growth and thickening activities!

#7 - Insect Control

Some lawns have continual problems with bug damage. Whether it’s white grub, sod webworm, billbugs or the host of other pests, it’s important to recognize that there is always going to be insect activity in a healthy lawn. The time to act is when the damage becomes obvious and not one plant at a time. Why would a turf manager take that stance instead of waging warfare to rid all activity? The answer is a fairly simple concept.

Nature will provide balance when the system itself is healthy. Vegetation chomping bugs attract a host of predators, from other insects up through birds and even skunks. Large populations may also compete within themselves for food and effectively starve themselves out battling for that resource. Nature may also inflict disease or some other malady to keep a population in check. Finally, healthy plants have their own ways of fending off large amounts of damage.

If these balances did not exist, the Earth would have already been wiped free of plant material long ago.

So chemical preventative strikes do what for us?

Well, they suck a lot of money out of your pocket. They wipe out predators along with the insects causing the problem, often resulting in an even bigger rebound of the bugs that didn’t die during the warfare. It also creates resistant pests, the ones who didn’t die and now are the ones who reproduce with a higher tolerance or even immunity to our pesticides, leaving us with no chemical tools in the future for real problems.

So...are we anti pesticide?

Not at all. They are important tools for managing damage in the landscape. Notice we said “managing damage”. There has never been and never will be a complete elimination of ANY insect in any living ecosystem (if we had that ability, do you think we’d still have mosquitoes?). They have to be there. So preventative, in relation to plant materials, is a complete and total waste of time.

Only reacting to small damage to limit spread, at time of occurrence, with a clear recognition of the pest and a choice of the proper weapon to treat with, including varying methods to limit tolerance build up, is the only smart choice.

You’ll also note that we mentioned healthy plants ability to fend off pests on their own as well. We CAN make better growing conditions that can lead to less pesticide use, particularly on turf by just following smart turf management strategies. This is one of those situations where less really is more.

We do have links to identifying pests in other portions of this site. If you suspect a damaged area to be insect caused, there is a very simple and quick test that you can perform. Grab a large handful of the browning area and gently tug. If it comes out, it’s being eaten. If it holds firm and is not accompanied by disease markers (see below), it’s water or chemical damage. If it comes out easily or rolls up like unrooted sod, get a shovel or spade full of the shallow dirt and look for your pest, correctly identify it and treat the damaged portion and the immediate area surrounding it. There is generally no need to treat an entire lawn and you run the risk of disrupting your balance if you do.

To recover damaged areas, rake out any dead grass, poke holes, reseed if needed and water. The grass will quickly fill the space back in.

Remember, balance and a healthy system means far less effort and cost to maintain!

#8 - Disease Control

One of the few benefits of living in a low humidity area is that conditions for creating large plant disease outbreaks generally only exist at our own creation. There are billions of spores available for growth in our landscapes at any given time. Some beneficial and some not (at least in the context of our caring for our yards), but most sharing a common thread when it comes to attacking our turf…water…specifically the always humid situations that can trigger fungal growth.

Think of a poorly ventilated bathroom. Long, hot showers create a load of humidity that has nowhere to go. Molds and mildew seems to popup overnight, regardless of how many times it’s been bleached or disinfected. Take away that humidity with ventilation and what happens? The dry out does what the chemical attack could not, provide a long term solution. So goes it in the landscape. Because we have such low humidity, especially in the summer time, we have the luxury of simply letting it dry out before we get it wet again, providing the long term solution to the problem. No expensive fungicides, no elaborate control methods, just simply following the water method described above, deep and INFREQUENT and the vast majority of the turf disease issues resolve.

There are exceptions, very shady areas near a pond might be a good example, but we still have choices outside of fungicides for even a scenario like this. Thinning the tree canopy to allow a little more sunlight and air flow, choosing a more resistant type of grass, cutting back irrigation and aeration to allow better drainage are all possibilities. The point is to look for long term solutions rather than an expensive 30 day fix that just allows another outbreak soon after. Don’t be the cause and you’ll find the vast majority resolve themselves right away.