I have noted on my calender the date of August 20 for the last several years for a reason. This seems to be the day (ok, week) that the first signs of change are going to be happening in the lawn. This year is proving to be no different. The days begin to become obviously shorter, the sun becomes significantly less intense and night time air temperatures become noticeably lower. All of this results in heavy morning dews and lower soil temperatures which leads to a greening up lawn. If we are lucky enough to get a thunderstorm or two, which happened again this week this year, the lawn greens up even faster and goes right in to growth mode and begins repairing itself from summer heat and drough stress.
There are two main reasons why the lawn suffers and turns brown during the month of July and early August. High soil temperatures from direct radiant heat, higher daytime and nighttime air temperatures, and lower precipitation rates leave the lawn struggling to grow and usually results in dormancy to survive. This situation unfolds every summer across the area and has for thousands of years. We call the month of July and first half of August the "danger zone" in the lawn care industry because there is not much we can do from the service side, we simply ask that everyone waters regularly and mows high and less frequently. We aim to minimize the services and applications of any kind to lawns during this time unless they are being irrigated. Simply walking on the lawn during the danger zone can cause more damage in extreme cases from heat striping. However, that is all going to change in the next week or two.
All of these conditions make late august and early September a perfect time to begin fertilizing, aerating and power-seeding services. If you haven't maintained a healthy lawn all season and want to thicken up the lawn for fall now is the time to schedule those services or begin planning to do the work yourself. A healthy thick lawn in the fall will also carry over to a better lawn next spring which builds a thicker healthier lawn to prevent and withstand summer stress next year. Because as you now know and as this blog states, mother nature will return again next year and prove this all true once again.
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