Drought dead lawn. What now?

Primrose

Like most people our lawns look brown and dead. Recent light rain seems to have revived our back lawn a little but the front one which received a dose of Weed and Feed just before the drought arrived seems as dead as a dodo. You can actually pull the roots up and they crumble into dust.

So what,s the most energy saving way of redeeming the situation? An too unfit to be able to dig it up and start again!

Would raking, scattering seed and covering with compost do it when the weather is cooler and some rain is forecast?

macman

You are supposed to water it in if there is no rain...reseeding it is probably the only treatment now, if the W&F has burnt in.

boliston

i think grass is pretty resilient even when dead looking and brown - i'm sure the nation's parks won't all need a reseed

Living_proof

boliston wrote: »

i think grass is pretty resilient even when dead looking and brown - i'm sure the nation's parks won't all need a reseed

I think mine will need an overseed. The weed and feed put down just before the heatwave means that the weeds in many places were killed leaving huge circular holes in the sward. Normally the grass would have been growing like billy-o but this year it was stopped in its tracks so I have a lot of big bare spaces which will very rapidly be colonised by weeds - again. If we really are to regularly get such hot summer temperatures then I think we have to re-think our whole gardening theme to compensate.

Justagardener

Would raking, scattering seed and covering with compost do it when the weather is cooler and some rain is forecast?

This is a good method for reseeding bare patches and you might have to. However, nearly all lawns will recover this autumn, even if the roots appear non existant and dust dry. Give it a few more months and as long you are not pounding the lawn with dogs and foot traffic it will be back to its old self.

glasgowdan

Personally I'd scarify the life out of it soon and reseed the lawn. Get a head start before the weeds get their nasty roots in place.

Davesnave

You should worry; we prepped new garden area back in the autumn, ready to sow seed in the spring, which was far too wet.


Then came the dry. Now, we have something we call Afghanistan.....:(


Ironically, we also spread a load of soil spoil in a field last November to fill in a depression. I was told not to seed as late as that, but I did because the sack was there.....:p We made hay from that! It's not great, but much better than the garden's desert.

Primrose

Had I been a few years younger I would already have been out there with a rake scarifying getting ready to re-seed when early autum came. Now I have to summon up the energy to go and hunt down the rake !

Silvertabby

Established lawns don't need watering in a drought - they'll soon bounce back. It's the newly seeded/turfed ones you need to take care of.

Our (well established) lawn, which had been brown just a couple of weeks ago, is now back to its usual green lushness after just a few downpours.