“Brown Lawns are cool in drought” – it’s official

Why watering your established lawn is unnecessary…and tips on watering your newly laid turf.

There is no need to water established lawns.

The watering of established lawns is not only wasteful and unnecessary, it also causes many of the common lawn problems.

So don’t worry if your lawn goes brown during a drought. Going brown is the natural survival mechanism of grass. When water is in short supply grass responds by shutting down. The brown colour shows that the grass has stopped growing until more favourable conditions return.

Watering your established lawn should be avoided in most situations. Here’s why:

• Water is a precious and limited resource.
• Watering increases the chance of disease on your lawn. Most lawn diseases thrive in warm, damp conditions.
• Watering encourages the spread of the weed grass, annual meadow grass. Lawns that are allowed to dry out have much less of this unsightly weed.
• Watering encourages shallow rooting, which in turn means the lawn is more at risk in dry conditions. So, once you start watering, you can’t stop.
• Damp soils are easily damaged by compaction during heavy use, e.g. during family barbeques and games on the lawn.

Grass is remarkably resilient, and as long as you follow a few basic rules, most lawns will recover completely when the rains finally arrive. Below, we give you some ideas on how to plan ahead, and some hints on how to care for your lawn during a dry summer.

Thinking Ahead

Let’s say you’re planning a new lawn. There are two ways to reduce the effects of drought in future years:

1. Increase the water-holding ability of your soil

Many of the problems associated with drought can be reduced by planning ahead. For example, before you lay a lawn, consider what type of soil you have in your garden. Sandy soils dry out much quicker than clay soils. So it’s worth incorporating lots of organic matter into your soil beforehand. Organic matter increases the ability of all soils to retain moisture. Our “Organic Peat Free Compost” or “Border Black Screened Topsoil & Compost Mix” help retain moisture.

2. Choose drought resistant grass types

Grasses with deep roots cope with drought better than grasses with shallow roots. This is because during a drought the upper levels of the soil dry out first. Our “Drought Master Turf” is a drought resistant type of grass.