Worried about your lawn in the drought? ‘Do as little as possible’ Virginia Tech expert says

Depending on where you are in the D.C. region, you鈥檒l find yourself either right now. If you鈥檙e worried that your lawn is starting to look a little rough, relax and maybe find another chore to do around the house.

Whatever you do, definitely don鈥檛 go reaching for a new bag of fertilizer, and think twice about firing up the mower again anytime soon. Instead, the best thing you can do right now is actually the easiest: back off.

“Do as little as possible,” said Daniel Sandor, an assistant professor of turf grass science at Virginia Tech. “The grass knows what to do. It can recover.”

Most D.C.-area lawns are cool season grasses 鈥� fescue and bluegrass for example 鈥� and Sandor said those are the ones most affected by drought stress. The key right now is limiting anything that adds extra strain.

That means cutting back on mowing. Since the grass isn’t getting enough water to grow, it’s probably not growing much anyway.

When you do mow, Sandor said to raise your mowing height to at least three inches, or as high as your mower will go, and always follow what he calls the “one-third” rule: never cut more than one-third of the blade in a single mow. In fact, he鈥檚 an advocate for mowing at higher heights anyway.

鈥淚 know a lot of people want their lawn to look like a golf course or a fairway, if you will,鈥� Sandor said. 鈥淭he higher you mow, it really helps reduce the stress on the turf and allows those roots to go deeper, so that when that drought does come, those roots are already deeper in the soil, or trying to go deeper in the soil, to where they can maybe get water at deeper depths. If we’re just mowing short all the time, those roots aren’t really going very far.鈥�

Skip the fertilizer, too. It might seem like a good way to nurse a struggling lawn back to health, but Sandor said it won’t do much good right now.

“If the soil is already dry, you don’t have the ability for the fertilizers to breakdown in the soil solution, but also for the active energy in the roots to absorb those nutrients,” he said. Instead, wait until fall, when root growth is most active and nutrients are more readily absorbed.

And if you’re planning a backyard cookout or a kids’ birthday party on the grass? Go for it, as long as you鈥檙e OK knowing the extra foot traffic will add some stress. Sandor said the lawn should still bounce back once rain returns.

For next year, Sandor said the best drought defense starts well before summer by fertilizing in the fall, and then conducting a soil test every three years to help you know exactly what nutrients the lawn needs.

鈥淭hat really helps the turf in terms of root growth and shoot growth during those times of active growth, really be fortified,鈥� Sandor said. 鈥淭hat should ultimately improve their drought resistance if they’re healthy going into the drought period.鈥�

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