Brown Spots!

What Causes Brown Spots?

Brown spots can be caused by a number of factors. Lack of water is the most common, followed by disease. Because Utah’s climate is so arid, there aren’t that many disease problems in our lawns. The number one culprit of brown spots in your lawn is lack of water.

There are a number of reasons one area on your lawn may not be getting enough water. You may have sprinkler heads that are not functioning properly. Poor uniformity in your irrigation system can cause one area to get less water than the rest of the zone.

Check for broken sprinkler heads, heads that are misaligned (a good indicator is a wet sidewalk or street), or obstructions such as trees, shrubs or landscape rocks.

If there are several brown spots within one zone, you may have an overall design problem. Fixing a design problem is costly and labor intensive. If you must replace your system, please consult with a professional irrigation designer. However, if the system seemed to work at one point, you most likely have poor pressure in your system. Call an irrigation professional to help you correct this problem.

For a monthly maintenance check, print this checklist of things to look for in your irrigation system. Print this list, turn on your zones, and mark the problems on the sheet. This way, you will have a record of system maintenance problems!

Coping with Brown Spots

No matter how much maintenance you do on your sprinkler system, no one’s irrigation system is perfect. It is impossible to design a sprinkler system that is 100% efficient. Don’t feel so bad.

After getting the system as uniform as possible, you may still have brown spots.

At this point, you have three choices:

1-Over-water your lawn, thereby wasting a valuable resource,
2-Hand-water the brown spots when needed, increasing your maintenance time
3-Plant something else there that doesn't need as much water.

Summer Lawn Care Explained

Did you know that most lawn problems are a direct result of over watering? Maintaining your lawn properly will help you save time, money and water!

Mowing

Is your lawn shorter than your carpet? Mowing your lawn at such a short length hurts the grass, wastes water and produces more green waste.

By raising your lawn mower height another ½ to 1 inch, you are promoting the conservation of water in grass. Grass will shade itself as it grows longer, reducing its overall water need. This, in turn, reduces the growth rate of the grass meaning less frequent mowing! Experts recommend cutting grass to a total length of 3 inches, and removing no more than one-third of the leaf blade per mowing.

Stressing

Ever heard the expression "What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger"? In order to make your grass heartier, try stressing it out! By going an extra day without water here and there, you are promoting deeper root growth. The deeper the roots are allowed to penetrate the soil, the better overall health of your lawn. Roots will only grow as far as they need to in order to get water. If you are always giving them water up near the surface of the lawn, the plants have no incentive to grow deeper. You can easily check your rooting depth by using a soil probe or screwdriver.

Try waiting as long as possible in the spring before watering your grass. The longer you wait, the healthier your lawn will be in the summer months. And don’t worry. It’s virtually impossible to kill your lawn. The lawn may turn brown in areas, but it is just the plant going DORMANT, not dying. Adding water will make that spot spring back to life!

Fertilization

Fertilizing your lawn encourages healthy plant growth. In this case, however, MORE IS NOT BETTER! Fertilize sparingly, as you can actually over stimulate plant growth, making the lawn more susceptible to dry conditions and disease. Additionally, the more fertilizer applied to a lawn increases the likelihood of harmful chemicals running off into streams or seeping into groundwater. The combination of over-watering and over-fertilizing can be dangerous to plants and humans!

Fall Lawn Tips

There are a number of things that you can do to prepare your lawn for the winter and to ensure that it comes back strong in the fall. The cool night temperatures we are currently experiencing are probably already strengthening your lawn after the hot and dry summer. You may be noticing improved grass color and density. Now is the perfect time to enhance the grass's recovery with a few simple steps.

After the summer, it is likely that your lawn needs some supplemental fertilization. Nitrogen will be needed in the largest quantity and you should apply 1 pound of slow-release nitrogen fertilizer per thousand square feet of lawn. This will help the lawn to recover from summer stresses and will further improve grass color and density.

As the cooler weather intensifies, you will also be able to stop irrigating your lawn. It's easy to forget that changes in the program of your irrigation controller are necessary at this time of the year. The grass does not need as much irrigation as it did during the heat of the summer and it's the perfect opportunity for conservation. A great deal of water can be wasted in the fall because irrigation controllers are not adjusted for the cooler temperatures.

As it gets even cooler and winter is just around the corner, you will notice that your lawn is growing much more slowly. At some point, you will perform your last mowing of the growing season. This is a critical time in the life and health of your lawn. Hopefully you have been mowing at a height of 2 1/2 -3 1/2 inches to promote root growth and stress tolerance. This is a good practice, but not a good one to follow with your final mowing of the season. This last mowing should be much shorter, from 1 to 1 1/2 inches. Mowing at this shorter height will not leave long grass blades over the winter that can lay over and increase humidity beneath snow cover. If the grass blades are very long, and there is lengthy snow cover, a disease called snow mold may occur.

After your final mowing is also the best time to apply your last fertilization of the growing season. Once again, nitrogen is of primary concern. Following your last mowing, you'll want to apply 1 pound of quick-release nitrogen fertilizer per thousand square feet of lawn. It's important that the nitrogen source be quick-release so that the grass can take it up before going dormant due to cold. This is probably the most critical fertilization of the entire growing season and should not be missed! Research has shown that this late fall fertilization provides the most benefit and drought tolerance to the lawn the FOLLOWING summer.

These simple steps will ensure that your lawn makes it not only through the winter, but into next summer healthy and stronger.