How to Care for Your Lawn through a Drought Season

Ugh! It is really getting ugly out there. Lawns are drying up, leaves on shrubs are wilting and it is beginning to be a real chore to keep up on watering annual plants. The one thing I have learned in my 35 years in the lawn care business is that it will rain again – I guarantee it. The tough part is figuring out when it will rain again and how much damage will occur if the rain keeps skipping our area. We will just have to wait, hope, pray, wave a dead chicken over our head at midnight, do a rain dance or any other folk remedy that may help the rain return.

Taking Care of Your Lawn in a Drought

As far as your lawn is concerned, it will survive as long as it gets about a half an inch of rain every 30 days. If you have been mowing your lawn at 2½ to 3 inches, then you may even be able to wait another week before watering. I am not saying that it will look good, but it will be alive. The goal is to keep the crown of the plant alive. To do this, leave a sprinkler in the same location for about an hour. This will generally supply about half an inch of water.

Drought on Warm Season Grasses - Expert Lawn Care Tips

To keep track of the amount of water, you can place three empty tuna fish cans or similar containers close to the sprinkler- half way between the sprinkler and the farthest point the water reaches, and at the farthest point that the water reaches. After an hour, measure the amount of water in each container, add the amounts together and divide by three to determine the average amount water supplied per hour. That seems like a lot of work to me, so I recommend just leaving the sprinkler in one spot for about an hour and it will be fine.

Taking Care of Trees & Shrubs in a Drought

You should be more concerned about caring for your trees and shrubs during a drought. For the most part, turf will survive, but trees and shrubs have a harder time dealing with excessive dryness, especially when it is combined with above average temperatures and compacted soil. The majority of the roots are located in the top eight inches of soil, and the roots can extend out as far as four times the distance from the trunk to the edge of the drip line.

Concentrate your watering from the drip line out. For younger trees and shrubs, more of the feeder roots are close to the main trunk, so concentrate the water in that area. If you are watering a large bed of shrubs, setting up a sprinkler on a bucket or purchasing a sprinkler that has an extension tube on it will allow you to water this area more efficiently. Hand watering is usually not sufficient to provide an adequate amount of water.

It will rain again, I promise. I swear that going out at midnight and waving a dead chicken over your head will either make it rain or get you arrested – your choice.

Enjoy your Fourth of July holiday celebration and watch those sparklers on the dry grass. You don’t want to start any grass fires.