BEVERLEY – After a dry summer left plenty of lawns around Beverley looking brown and rather sorry for themselves, the return of rain is already beginning to make a difference.
Grass that appeared scorched only a few weeks ago can quickly begin turning green again once moisture returns. September is also one of the best times of year to repair the damage left by summer, with soil still warm enough for grass to grow while cooler weather and more regular rainfall provide good conditions for recovery.
Before deciding your lawn needs digging up and starting again, give it a chance to recover naturally.
Grass often becomes dormant during prolonged dry weather. It stops growing and turns brown to conserve moisture, but the roots can remain alive below the surface. Once rain returns, established grass can begin producing new green growth surprisingly quickly.
For many Beverley gardens, therefore, the first job is simply to wait for the rain to do some of the work.
Don’t cut it too short
As the grass starts growing again, mowing can resume, but resist the temptation to immediately give an untidy lawn a very short cut.
Set the mower a little higher and avoid removing more than around a third of the grass blade in a single mow. Longer grass has more leaf available for photosynthesis and should recover more effectively.
If your lawn has become particularly long following the rain, bring the height down gradually over several cuts rather than scalping it in one go.
Avoid mowing when the ground is saturated. Apart from producing a poor cut, a heavy mower on very wet soil can contribute to compaction.
Repair the patches that don’t come back
Some areas will inevitably have suffered more than others.
Paddling pools, garden furniture, football goals and heavily used paths across the lawn can leave genuinely bare patches even when the surrounding grass starts recovering.
September is a good time to repair them.
Rake away loose and dead grass, lightly loosen the surface of the soil and scatter grass seed across the patch. Gently rake the seed into the surface so that it has good contact with the soil.
Keep newly seeded areas moist while they germinate. With warm September soil, germination can be considerably quicker than attempting the same job once colder autumn weather arrives.
If the whole lawn looks thin rather than having individual bare patches, overseeding can also help. This simply means spreading new grass seed across an existing lawn to increase its density.
Give compacted lawns some air
Compaction can be another problem after summer.
Months of children playing, pets running around and people walking over dry ground can leave soil hard and compressed. Heavier soils can become particularly solid after prolonged dry weather.
Aerating the lawn allows more air and water to reach the roots.
You don’t necessarily need specialist equipment. For an ordinary garden lawn, push a garden fork several inches into the ground at regular intervals and gently rock it backwards and forwards.
Larger or particularly compacted lawns can be treated with a hollow-tine aerator, which removes small plugs of soil rather than simply making holes.
The return of rain makes this considerably easier than trying to drive a garden fork into ground resembling concrete in August.
Should you scarify the lawn?
September is also traditionally scarifying season, although that doesn’t mean every lawn needs doing.
Scarifying removes moss and the layer of dead grass and organic material known as thatch that can accumulate between the living grass and the soil.
A small lawn can be scarified using a spring-tine rake. Electric scarifiers make the job considerably easier on larger areas.
It can look alarmingly destructive while you’re doing it. A heavily scarified lawn often looks considerably worse immediately afterwards, but removing excessive thatch allows water, nutrients and air to reach the soil more effectively.
Only scarify where there is actually a build-up to remove, and do it while the grass is actively growing so it has time to recover.
Feed for autumn, rather than summer
A tired lawn can also benefit from an autumn lawn feed.
Check the packet carefully before reaching for whatever happens to be lurking at the back of the shed. Autumn lawn feeds have a different balance of nutrients from high-nitrogen summer products and are intended to support root development and resilience as the growing season slows.
September is also a useful time to remove larger perennial weeds such as dandelions. Try to take out as much of the root as possible and reseed any significant gaps that are left behind.
Don’t waste the rain
Once regular rainfall returns, an established lawn generally shouldn’t need additional watering.
Newly sown grass is different. Grass seed needs consistent moisture while it germinates, so repaired areas may still need watering during dry spells even if the rest of the lawn does not.
The aim over the next few weeks isn’t to produce a bowling green. It is to get healthy grass growing strongly again before temperatures fall and growth slows.
For most Beverley lawns, the September recovery plan is fairly simple: let the rain bring the grass back, mow a little higher, aerate compacted areas, remove excessive thatch and reseed the patches that don’t recover.
After a summer of sunshine, football, barbecues, paddling pools and very little rain, some lawns have taken quite a battering. Give them a few weeks of September weather and a little attention, and many will head into autumn looking considerably greener than they did at the end of August.