Tag Archives: summer lawn care

Help Your Lawn Survive the Summer

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Help Your Lawn Survive the Summer

Summer is a trying time for lawns with excessive heat, long dry spells, sudden storms and weeds. These tips will help you fight back against these threats so you can keep your grass looking green all season long.

Is Your Grass Dead or Dormant?

If conditions become too difficult for grass to grow, it can go into dormancy. In this state, the blades will turn brown. It may look dead, but the root system remains active. Most grass varieties can stay dormant for 4-6 weeks.

The best thing you can do for dormant grass is leave it alone. Don’t try to water the lawn to bring it back and don’t mow it. Let it recover in the fall. Once some green returns to the grass, you can resume watering and mowing.

High traffic areas will see more fatigue, going into hibernation before the rest of the lawn. Don’t be surprised if you see brown areas where people frequently walk. Adding some stepping stones in these areas can help keep people off of the grass.

Watering

Large quantities of water in short bursts helps support deep root growth, making the grass more drought resistant. Ideally, the grass should be watered between 5-9 am. to give time to absorb water and let the turf dry out. Watering overnight can leave moisture on the blades, opening the turf to fungal infections.

Use a rain gauge or a straight-sided can to measure water dropped on the ground by rain and sprinklers to prevent over-watering. If you’ve installed new sprinklers, you can measure their output by putting two or three rain gauges nearby when they’re active.

Mowing

If the layer of thatch is more than a quarter inch thick, roots will grow into it instead of burrowing into the soil. Thatch thickness can be kept down by making use of your mower’s mulching abilities. Honda’s MicroCut blades can mulch grass even when it’s wet, creating a layer of easily digested plant material. In turn, this helps the microorganisms in your lawn take care of the harder material that makes up the thatch layer.

Dull blades will tear the tips of the grass, making it more prone to infection. The blade edges should be straight and have the sharpness of a butter knife. If you see jagged edges on the tips of mowed grass, the blade is too dull.

Taller grass acts as shade and helps grow deeper roots. When summer temperatures are at their peak, warm-season grasses should be kept at a height of 2-3 inches, while cool-season grasses can be allowed to grow up to 4 inches.

Fertilizing

Stop fertilizing a month before your area sees peak summer temperatures. Lawn chemicals can burn the existing grass, and it can spur extra growth that won’t be ready to withstand the heat. If you have a serious problem that can only be helped with fertilizer, go for an organic mix. It will release slower than chemical-based fertilizers, making it less likely to burn the grass.

Weeds, Insects, and Mold

With the right mowing and watering techniques, new grass growth should push out most weeds. If you do have weed problems, keep in mind that post-emergent herbicides usually need to be applied at temperatures below 85ºF. Grubs will start hatching mid-summer. If they become a problem, grub control can be applied immediately.

Ideally, fungus should be treated before summer is in full swing. If it shows up later in the season, treatment will require treatments every two to three weeks to keep it at bay. Proper watering techniques should avoid most mold, but there’s not much you can do if you have repeated nighttime rainfall.

Keep Your Mower Running

Hondalawnparts.com is a certified dealer for Honda Power Equipment and Honda Engines. That means when you order from us, you’ll always get a quality OEM replacement. Finding the right part is easy: just select your model and serial number in the search engine and it will show you factory parts diagrams and descriptions. We ship across the U.S. and Canada.

Best Honda Lawn Equipment for Late Summer Lawn Care

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Honda Lawn EquipmentThe high temperatures and low rainfall of midsummer are hard on your lawn, which makes it important to do what you can during this stressful period and before winter hibernation. While you may need to rent some specialty devices, the Honda equipment you already own can aid and sometimes replace these devices when preparing your lawn for fall.

Aeration

Foot traffic and construction can compact the soil over time, which can keep oxygen and water from reaching the root system. A coring aerator gets the best results since it removes compacted soil instead of pushing it to break it up. The cores left behind can be chopped up by your mower, but this is hard on the blade, so it will need to be sharpened before you next mow.

Dethatching

If the thatch layer, the dead material on the surface of the soil, is over a half inch thick, it should be removed using a dethatching rake or power dethatcher. This loosened thatch can then be mowed and bagged for disposal. Mulching the grass can reduce thatch buildup by keeping the microorganisms in the top layer of the soil well fed so they be able to tackle woodier plant material.

Fertilizing

Fertilizing starts with your mower: mulching breaks down the grass into small pieces that are easy for microorganisms to digest, returning nutrients to the soil. By using a mower with Honda’s Twin Blade system, you can even mulch when the grass is wet for maximum nutrient recovery.

There are plenty of specially blended fall fertilizers on the market, but before you start the application, you need to have the soil tested to make sure you’re feeding your lawn what it needs. After application, the lawn can be mowed after granular fertilizers have been applied after watering, while liquid fertilizers should be allowed to dry for 24 hours.

Applying Herbicides and Insecticides

In the late summer and early fall, broadleaf plants like dandelions are preparing for winter by transferring carbohydrates to their roots. By applying herbicides during this period, these poisons will be drawn into the roots, killing the entire plant. Have a grub problem? Now is the time to apply an insecticide to stop their growth.

Seeding

Once the soil preparation is finished, it’s time to overseed any bald spots so they can take root and get ready for the winter. Mowing the grass at your mower’s lowest height and bagging the clippings will help the seeds get maximum contact with the soil, and it will help the new grass grow along with the old, evening out your lawn.

Pruning and Trimming

Late summer is the perfect time to trim shrubs and bushes, and with Honda’s VersAttach pruner and hedge trimmer, you can have all the tools you need to get the job done quickly.

If you’re dealing with an old or overgrown shrub, cutting back a third of the oldest, thickest branches will encourage the growth of new stems from the root of the plant. Once the shrub is at the right height, cut the top off after it’s had a chance to grow another 6-8 inches. Shaping the plant so that the base is wider than the bottom will increase sunlight exposure.

Mowing

Tall grass helps retain moisture at the peak of summer temperatures, but it’s also a good idea to keep the turf layer thick into early fall to push out weeds, make it harder for grubs to hatch and more easily identify areas that need to be seeded. Most grass varieties should be kept at a height of two to three inches for optimum coverage. Unless you’re overseeding, never remove more than 1/3 of the grass at one time: this helps the grass recover faster. After mowing, check the grass for tearing at the tips, which indicates a dull mower blade.

Edging

Using your string trimmer or brush cutter, you can create narrow trenches around landscaping features and between the lawn and paved areas. The resulting borders help features stand out, and they can halt the ingress of plant roots into your sidewalks and driveway. Doing this in the fall will help these borders survive the winter, making it easy to re-establish gardens and thick mulched areas underneath trees next spring.

Keep Your Equipment Ready with Parts from Honda Lawn Parts

Hondalawnparts.com is a certified Honda Power Equipment and Small Engines dealer, so we carry everything you need to keep your lawn care equipment working. Our site has built-in parts diagrams to make it easy to find what you need, and we can ship those parts anywhere in the U.S. and Canada.