The Do’s and Don’ts of lawn care during hot, dry weather

If your grass is brown, dry and feels like straw you are not alone. An expert joins us to help revive our lawn.

The hot weather combined with a lack of precipitation is causing many lawns in Ottawa to dry out.

Maintaining a lawn during a drought or a heatwave requires some maintenance, Nutri-Lawn Ottawa founder and owner Thom Bourne told CTV Morning Live, and there are some common mistakes to avoid.

He says if you’ve been watering your lawn already, you’ll want to continue, but if you haven’t started yet, don’t expect instant results.

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“The best plan right now is if you have been watering, stay with it, water deeply, not too frequently, then your lawn will look great,” he said. “If you haven’t been watering, however, and you haven’t been cutting it too short, just let it go dormant, and as soon as the rains start back, the grass will start to come back.”

Bourne says it can take several days for grass to revive once it starts getting water again.

“When you start watering, don’t expect it to come back immediately. It’s going to take about 21 days for it to grow to something that looks reasonable again.”

Some municipalities in the region, such as Carleton Place, are asking residents to refrain from using sprinkler and irrigation systems to water their lawns because of the lack of rainfall. Local conservation authorities are also asking people who live in several areas to reduce their overall water consumption because of the dry conditions.

What if my lawn has died?

Bourne said some lawns in Ottawa might be beyond saving at this point, given the conditions.

“Every year seems to have a little bit of a drought, but this one is excessive. We’re seeing signs of lawns that are not going to come back because they’ve dried up, they’ve shed their roots, the crowns have died, and that’s it, they’re toast, so people are going to have to get some overseeding done in the fall,” he said.

And fall is quickly approaching, despite how it feels outside right now.

“In the next few weeks, when the night temperatures start coming down, we want to start getting seed on people’s lawns, so it recovers well for the fall. If they don’t do that, they’re going to find out that they have a lawn that’s very thin, very sparse, and it’s not going to last through the winter,” he said.

“By getting some overseeding done in the next few weeks into the fall, letting it grow for 21 days to harden, then it goes into winter mode… you’re going to have a great lawn in the spring. So, maintenance now is important for later on.”

Common mistakes

There are a couple of common mistakes people might make with their lawns.

“The number one mistake is they cut the lawn too short. They think they should cut it right down to nothing; they shouldn’t,” he said. “Let it grow up to about three inches, and right now, if it’s anything below three inches, don’t cut it, just let it go.”

Keeping the grass at around three inches, or between seven and eight centimetres, will help shield the roots from the sun, Bourne said, which will keep them from drying out.

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The next common mistake is infrequent or improper watering.

“It tricks it into thinking the rain is here, it starts to grow, it doesn’t have water, and then it either goes dormant or sheds and dies again. It’s important not to water too little at any particular time,” said Bourne.

The weather forecast for this week includes low chances for precipitation and temperatures remaining above average on most days. The last significant rainfall that was reported in Ottawa was on July 24, with some trace amounts or short, localized bursts since then.