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The weather in the UK is set to get hotter in the coming weeks, but this isn’t always the best news for our gardens – particularly our lawns. Here are some tips to revive your grass in the heat
Many of us might welcome a heatwave when one finally arrives in the UK – giving families an excuse up and down the country to whip off the barbecue cover and get together. But for our gardens, particularly our lawns, it isn’t always an easy time.
For many people, the lawn is the centrepiece of the garden – with many gardeners in the UK putting a premium on keeping their grass looking as immaculate as possible. However, with a “medium” risk of drought reported for the summer ahead, it’s likely that prolonged hot and dry weather could leave lawns looking a little bit worse for wear.
In a country that is generally known to be pretty rainy and grey, many of our green spaces are just not set up to be particularly drought-proof. This can mean some gardeners are left disappointed in hot weather and find themselves dealing with yellow or brown lawns.
Gardening expert Cameron Macfie from The Conscious Gardening Company (www.consciousgardeninguk.com) explains to the Mirror, “I think in England and around the world, particularly America, we have this obsession with keeping lawns very green and healthy, but obviously with huge amounts of water usage to keep things green, it’s an unsustainable model.”
Another expert, James from Grass247 (www.grass247.co.uk), notes that in a heatwave, it is the low moisture levels in soil, coupled with high temperatures that “will stress out grass – leaving it discoloured, dry, and rough”.
James adds, “A key way to tell if your lawn is suffering from recent changes in the weather is that it will start to look yellow, be brittle to touch, and will struggle to grow.”
If these signs occur in your garden, James explains that you should press “pause” on mowing the lawn, to give it time to recover and grow, explaining: “Grass growth slows down in dry conditions, meaning if you continue to cut your lawn close in this weather, you can weaken your grass and make it vulnerable.
“Mowing less and raising your cutting height will encourage deeper rooting for your lawn – meaning that it will recover from a drought or heatwave easier,” he adds.
Cameron believes that gardeners should also learn to “relax” a little when it comes to browning, saying, “I do take the approach to relax as a gardener and allow for natural cycles to take place. If you do have a lawn that has suffered during a period of drought, to relax and allow for that to happen, and in time it will regenerate. We will have rains at some point and they will bounce back.”
James echoed these sentiments, saying, “If you have maintained your grass well, it will regrow once it rains.”
Heatwaves and droughts can also mean that a hosepipe ban is enforced to ensure we are all saving our much-needed water where possible, so it’s important to make sure that you’re prepared. James recommends that gardeners set up ways to collect rainwater to ensure sustainability and conserve water where possible.
“You can collect rainwater to create sustainable water management in your garden should a hosepipe ban come into effect. Rain butts, rain chains, ponds, and bird baths, can help conserve water and mitigate the effects of dry conditions in your garden,” he shares.
Lawns can be thirsty, but James warns gardeners not to overwater their grass, however tempting it might be. “Do not overwater your lawn in an attempt to revive it from dry conditions, as this can actually reduce your grass’s drought tolerance, meaning it is more dependent on you and likely to dry out in these weather conditions,” he explains.
If you really want to give your lawn a drink, you should do so no more than once a week. James advises, “You should do this during the early morning or middle of the afternoon. Watering your grass at night can encourage disease in your lawn, by creating an environment for fungus and bacteria to grow, so avoid doing this in the evening.”
However, there is a more sustainable option when it comes to keeping the “lawny aesthetic” of a lush green centrepiece in your garden. Cameron explains that it can “mean water usage is drastically reduced or cut out completely” – a clover lawn.
“One thing that is a potential solution if you want the lawn effect is to plant something more like a clover lawn or seed a clover lawn,” he says.
There are a number of benefits to a clover lawn, the expert explains, including that they are “really soft underfoot, really cushiony, and it feels lovely to have a high percentage of clover in a green lawn space because of its feel and its texture. But it’s also much more resistant to drought, so, in periods of very hot and dry weather, traditional grassy lawns may brown off and start to look a little bit scraggy, [but] a clover lawn fares much better.”
