So your lawn looks like a war zone, what’s not dead is dying or crushed, is it time to start over?

Surprisingly, the answer may be no. At the risk of sounding like Miracle Max in the Princess Bride, there is dead and there is MOSTLY dead. Turf is very, very tough and people often mistake dormancy for a dead lawn. The difference? Dormancy will still have a root system and lies in wait of moisture and favorable growing conditions. Dead..well..dead is dirt. If you have nothing but dirt left, it’s time to break up the soil through aeration or tilling and plant some new seed.

So, if it’s not all the way dead, how can you bring it back? Well, the simple answer is to provide what you didn’t provide, that allowed it to get that way! Likely, that’s going to be water. So how to water to bring back the dead in the summer heat? Your first order of business will be to begin wetting the entire root profile, whether that be two inches or two feet. Deep water cycles of a least 30 mins with pop up sprinklers, an hour with rotors, will get you there. You’re going to want to do this 3-4 times per week, depending on your soil type (more for sand, less for clay). This is how you could have been watering to maintain the lawn, but a moot point, you didn’t and that’s why we’re here now. Now, watering like normal, healthy turf would not cut it bringing back the dead, so to speak. We’re also going to need to do a supplemental watering daily, maybe even twice a day, treating it like a turf with no roots(sod) or germinating seed. This may take as long as 30 days to get significant, uniform greening. So that’s 3-4 deep waterings per week, daily or maybe even bi-daily waterings on top of it and some time. What did you expect? It’s cheaper and easier to maintain than to rebuild and that’s true of many, many things in this world.

Weeds, weeds and some more weeds. Here they come as you water your brains out, time to get out the weed control, right? Wrong. Mow em down. You’re still dealing with stressed turf and herbicides over the top, even ones designed to be used on your grass, can actually injure the stressed grass plant and cause even more damage. You can have at the weeds once the grass is greened back up. How about fertilizer, that will help speed things along, right? Actually, no…same deal applies. If you just have to feel like you’re doing something to help, you can spread a SLOW release starter fertilizer (yeah, they come labelled that way) at half the recommended rate now and half again in three weeks. Why? Small steps, you’ve got to baby this lawn now back to health. They don’t prescribe bodybuilding weight plans to people in the hospital and you should think along the same lines dealing with your turf, a living organism.

So what about more seed? Sure, you can add more to thicken or improve the lawn. Realize that if it’s too hot, it may have a rough time germinating though and be a waste of your time and money. Reseeding results may be best when done in the fall, when the temps are back to the 70s and weed pressure is not so high. Make sure you choose a quality seed though, three dollars more for a box may mean the difference between seeding with a fine grade, improved turf or tossing down more weeds. Grass seed carries a label of what it is, just like fertilizer, and it’s true whether it’s one pound box or a hundred pound bag. Listed are the varieties and types contained inside PLUS the weed content percentage. Think 1% noxious weeds sound ok? Consider that a bag may have well over a million seeds and now you just seeded 10 THOUSAND(1%) noxious weed seeds!!! Screening seed out costs a little more, but so well worth it. Be choosey now, it will saves hundreds, if not thousands later.

If you seed, there are also some other considerations to make. This is your chance to change the makeup of your turf. To make it tougher or darker green, softer or more insect and disease resistant, even more drought tolerant. There are tons and tons of resources out there for choosing particular grass types depending on what you’re after and there is not room to even scratch the surface here, so do a tiny little bit of homework or send us a request through our site at www.mygreenutah.com or visit the bulletin board and hit us up with your exact requirements and we’ll point you down the path to getting what you’re after.

Wrapping up, care and patience can go a long way in reviving turf and in fact, most plants. Remember it’s always easier to maintain than repair and when it comes to stepping beyond the basics (dirt and water) on stressed plants, less is more. Feel free to leave comments here or our site and let us know how we can help you.