Gardeners must avoid this lawn care job during a heatwave
A lawn expert is warning against fertilising your grass during a heatwave, stating that it will do far more damage than good.
With drought declared across England and Wales, there are undoubtedly a lot of dry, patchy lawns that have been struggling with the relentless heat. And while we all want to enlist the best August lawn care tips to restore our grass to its former glory. But fertilising your lawn is one task you must avoid during a heatwave.
You may assume giving your grass a good feed this month will help give it a boost. That is wrong; fertilising your lawn now can stress your grass even more, making it take even longer to recover.
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Why can’t your fertilise a lawn during a heatwave?
During a heatwave or drought conditions, your grass is essentially in survival mode and adding fertiliser can put an unnecessary strain on your lawn, making it a garden job you should never do in a heatwave.
(Image credit: Future PLC/James Merrell)
‘Fertilising a lawn with a granular feed during a heatwave is one of the quickest ways to make a lawn worse, not better,’ explains Matt J Adams, founder and lead gardener at The Relentless Gardener.
‘It can be tempting to feed your lawn when it starts looking brown or patchy, as many gardeners assume it simply needs a boost of nutrients to green up again. In reality, the grass is in survival mode, and applying fertilisers to dry, stressed turf can scorch the blades, placing even more pressure on the roots and delaying recovery.
Instead, if you want to protect your lawn in a heatwave, you should water it deeply once or twice a week and early in the morning. You could also consider using a wetting agent (£19.99, B&Q), which aids your lawn in absorbing water and reduces runoff. Pros also recommend raising your mower blades to leave your grass a bit longer. This helps shade the soil and helps it retain moisture.
‘Grass going brown during a prolonged dry spell is one of the most misunderstood things in lawn care. What you’re actually seeing is dormancy: the grass basically going into survival mode, which to the eye looks like putting all its energy into protecting the root, not a shiny green grass blade,’ adds Ashleigh Bradshaw, Lawn Specialist at Hayter.
‘The lawn will very likely recover once regular rainfall returns, often within a few weeks. The danger is overreacting. Heavy watering, feeding and scarifying during active dormancy tends to do more damage than the drought itself.’
When should you fertilise a lawn?
Of course, lawns do benefit from feeding; you just need to know when to fertilise a lawn. Matt says to hold your horses until the weather has cooled down. Most experts recommend feeding your lawn once in spring and once in autumn.
(Image credit: Future PLC/Polly Eltes Photography)
‘The best time to fertilise is once the hot weather has passed, temperatures have cooled, and ideally after rainfall has returned so the lawn is actively growing again. Spring is the ideal time to encourage new growth, while a slow nitrogen-releasing feed can also help replenish nutrients after a dry spell, provided the soil is no longer extremely dry. The Relentless Gardener’s Summer Liquid Lawn Feed is specially designed to be applied during warmer weather but can only be used if the lawn is not already brown,’ he says.
Garden Lawncare Guy
Moisturemax™ Granular Wetting Agent for Lawns – Garden Lawncare Guy
Wetting agents break the surface tension of water, making it easy for water to penetrate your soil and get to grass roots.
Miracle-Gro Rotary Spreader Green (one Size)
This spreader is great for distributing your wetting agent granuals. And it will come in handy again when the time comes to fertilise your lawn.
While fertilising your lawn might sound like a good idea right now, it’s really not. Put the feed away, wait till autumn and focus on watering right now.
