Don’t fret if your lawn went brown, there’s hope for next year

Laying sod at a house in Crescent Heights this week, he says proper watering is essential. He says don’t be discouraged if your lawn is brown, just give it lots of moisture.

A lot of people make the mistake of watering too often and not long enough. Instead of 20 minutes every day, Van Dam says go for 45 minutes to an hour every second or third day.

“Get those roots going down so it soaks down and if you start that in the spring it actually trains the roots to go deeper so your lawn stays greener because the roots have cooler moister areas during the summer.”

Homeowners like to have plenty of healthy green grass. But it’s a necessity for golf courses.

Connaught Golf Club superintendent Justin Olansky says they were only able to use about 50 per cent of the water they could in previous years so they had to let some areas go.

The driving range hasn’t been watered in months and is completely yellow and certain areas of the course have also been cut off from water.

“Ideally you just try to keep your playable areas as healthy as you can your fairways, greens tees,” Olansky says. “You’d like to keep more of your rough areas in good shape but if you don’t necessarily have the water supply for it you just have to make those decisions.”

Golf courses typically turn the water on early in the morning before the golfers tee off. Homeowners should water at the same time or in the late evening, Olansky says.

Van Dam and Olansky recommend applying a fall fertilizer around this time of year.

“It gets your lawn to strengthen up through the fall and then with the cooler temperatures and everything else it doesn’t use as much as far as the nutrients go and they are able to hold over the winter and carry through into the spring so they’re there when they wake up,” says Olansky.

Van Dam says of all the clients he had this year for lawn care or larger projects only a few are fed up with maintaining a real grass lawn.

“I have had some people hinting at maybe wanting to go towards the artificial turf direction and few people they want to do the rock, just do total xeriscaping,” he says. “There’s still quite a few diehards that are holding on to their lawns. They love to have the green, luscious grass.”

by Chris Brown

Don’t fret if your lawn went brown, there’s hope for next year

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