Now is the time to start paying attention to the summer guide
to North Texas lawn care to ensure that the Texas heat doesn’t inflict its
damage on your yard. With the heat rising and the outdoor season starting in
earnest, the summer guide to North Texas lawn care will let you start off the
season right!
Watering Habits
When and how you water your lawn is the most important factor in the quality of your lawn and plant life. The industry standard for the amount of water your lawn needs is roughly an inch of water per week or 1/2 an inch twice per week, whether the yard gets water manually or from rainfall. The best time to water the yard is early in the morning before the sun starts beating down on it. This will allow the water to soak into the dirt and to the roots.
Watering restrictions in your community during periods of drought will affect when you can water your lawn. Try to stay diligent to the one inch per week of water guideline. Too much water can be wasteful and damage harmful to the life span of the grass. Having your irrigation system checked and maintained during this time will ensure that water usage is appropriate for the needs of your yard.
The grass should be taller during the summer months, which
will allow for deeper root growth and cover from the sun. The insulation also
allows for the soil to maintain its moisture better. The general rule of thumb
is to keep the grass roughly about 1 ¾ inches to 2 ½ inches for most turf
types.
It is also important not to let the grass get too long. and removing more than 1/3 or the leaf blade height at when mown can do damage to the grass. Different mowing and watering strategies are required depending on the type of grass. It is prudent to check the type of grass in your yard before taking any serious steps.
Preventative Care
The actions you take now will be seen a month from now. One key preventative measure is fertilization and aeration of the lawn. But not all fertilizers are created equal when it comes to summer lawn maintenance. Call us today at (214) 701-7622 to discuss your lawn care needs and we will be happy to help!
it’s critical to take care of weed problems during the summer before they’re able to germinate and seed in the fall. It is also recommended to apply weed treatment while the temperature is less than 85 degrees to prevent harming the grass. Aerating and loosening the soil is another pivotal step in the process. This act ensures that the dirt retains its moisture. Tight, compact soil typically leads to quicker evaporation. Keeping the soil less compact allows for greater water penetration down to the roots.
Pest and Insect Control
The summer months are also a time when you’re likely to see
more pests and insects in your lawn as tiny creatures search out for water.
Many beetles and other insects lay their eggs in the grass during the early
parts of the summer, which hatch into grubs during the middle of the season
that will eat at your grass.
A healthy lawn will help prevent insect infestations. Dry stressed, or dormant lawns are more likely to be home to insects. Aphids, Caterpillars, Fleas, Fire Ants, Chinch Bugs,Grubs, Mosquitoes, Spider Mites, Snails, Slugs and Beetles are just some of the pests can provide services for. Call First Response Lawn Care today at (214) 701-7622! For all your lawn care needs!
Weed Prevention for Spring Spring weeds are working hard to rob your trees and shrubs of water, nutrients, and, ultimately, their health. That is why First Response Lawn Care has structured our weed control service to ensure that you have protection in every month of the year. Our experienced weed control specialists follow a plan that is tailored to the Texas climate including early season weed prevention, Spring weed control and prevention, plus Summer weed control and Fall weed preparation.
At First Response Lawn Care, we work hard to monitor for weeds and keep your lawn safe so that you don’t have to. You deserve to spend your nights, weekends, and extra time with family and friends, and not tackling your weed woes!
Let First Response Lawn Care’s year-round care beat weeds at the source and keep them at bay before they have a chance to spring up. If you want total control against weeds in every season, we can help. Protect your landscape and let our trained technicians beat the issue for you.
By combining our 7 step program with good mowing and watering practices, your lawn should stay thick, healthy and green all year long.
Now that the summer temps are reaching triple digits, we need to take extra care in watering the lawn, plants and vegetable garden. We happen to notice that our tomatoes weren’t producing much, and the pepper plants looked particularly wilted recently. Veggies need water to produce, so watering the garden correctly is crucial in the hot summer especially when we are not getting enough rain. Tomatoes are especially unforgiving if they dry out, then get wet and get dried out again. This creates problems like blossom end rot. And if you start noticing cracks in your fruit, this happens when water follows a drought, causing the fruit to expand suddenly and split the skin. The only way to avoid this is to keep the soil consistently moist. We’ve put together a list of tips for watering your garden that should help in this heat!
Water your vegetables two to three times a week or more.
During really hot summer weather, watering the garden deeply and often is critical. The water needs to penetrate the soil to encourage deep roots and get away from the hot soil surface. If you aren’t using a sprinkler or drip system, put a cup or can in the garden soil and don’t stop watering until it has collected at least an inch of water. If your veggies are in containers like pots, you need to water every day during the heat because containers dry out faster than the ground. To hand-water a small plot, or pots, use a nozzle turned to the “shower” setting for gentle, rain-like watering. If water just puddles on the surface of the soil at first, move on, and come back several times to be sure the water is actually soaking in to the soil. The soil needs to be thoroughly moist.
Watch your garden for an “indicator” plant.
The first indication of a wilting plant in the garden is your dehydration indicator. When you notice a plant with droopy leaves, you need to take action. The first is usually a plant with big leaves like squash, cucumber and melon because those lose lots of moisture fast. But in our veggie garden, we noticed the peppers and tomatoes wilted first. Of course, it’s better to water consistently so that this never happens. We all have busy lives and even the attentive gardeners get caught by wilting plants in the summer months. Note that in very hot, dry, and sunny weather, the big-leafed plants will wilt a bit mid-day no matter what, but they recover quickly in the evening. We keep a watering schedule programmed in our cell phone to remind us to check the more vulnerable plants each day at some point.
Avoid wetting the plant’s leaves.
If you use a sprinkler system, it is impossible not to wet the leaves when watering the garden, so in that case, water early in the morning so that the foliage will dry early and quickly to minimize disease risk. You can put the sprinkler on a timer so that it comes on just before daybreak, when the leaves may already be wet with dew. The gardening principle here is to avoid adding to the length of time that the leaves stay wet because many diseases need moisture to thrive.
Help keep water in the ground.
Use mulch! We recommend organic mulch like chopped up leaves, finely ground bark, wheat straw or pine needles, but any mulch is better than none. Spread mulch around and under plants. This creates a barrier between the moist soil and the blazing sun. You need a 2 to 3-inch layer of mulch in hot weather. This will act as a shade cloth to keep in moisture and cool plant roots. Without mulch, the intense sun bakes the soil requiring even more watering.
If you need help reviving your lawn in the heat of the summer, call your lawn care experts First Response Lawn Care at (214) 701-7622. We serve Rockwall and surrounding cities Royse City, Fate, Rowlett, Sachse, Wylie, Lavon, Forney, Heath, Garland, and Mesquite Texas. We are here to help!
