Most probably you're living in a cool climate region if you are considering or have tall fescue grass in your lawn. You need to know about tall fescue that it can't tolerate dry and hot weather conditions for a long time. So if you have this on your lawn in a hot climate, chances are less that it'll survive for long in summer.
Still, in cool climates, the summer season can create a huge impact on the health of the tall fescue, So you need proper adjustments and care of tall fescue to avoid any drought, diseases, pests, and fungus in the future.
Here, I'll share some tips with you regarding grass feed, maintenance, and things to avoid in the summer of cool regions either in the United States or outside.
Tall Fescue grass summer care
After recovering from dormancy, some sections of the lawn turf remain unrecovered or have brown patches in spring. You need to recover them or reseed the area after treating the soil. Summer season is following maintenance season so you can't hope to start late recovery of tall fescue in summer.
Now, let's understand the details of the conditions of tall fescue in summer of cool climates.
Tall fescue lawn condition in summer
Tall fescue gets different growing conditions in summer so you can expect some changes in the strategy which you used in recent spring for maintenance.
Let's see what conditions Tall Fescue can show in the summer season-
- Without soil moisture and dry humidity conditions, tall fescue can't survive for a long time. It can grow longer if you keep at least one of them regular either soil moisture or high humidity.
- Some sections of tall fescue grass get brown or dead sometimes. This may happen due to unrecovered dormancy and lack of maintenance. One last chance you had was spring to recover these brown or dead spots. When it's late, it's too late to recover it back.
- Weeds like dandelion, thistle, and clover may appear in lawn grass with tall fescue. These weeds are invasive and cover the grass very fast if you ignore them for a long.
- Odd conditions or too much moisture in summer can encourage mites and ants in the lawn grass. If you keep maintaining the conditions normally, still there are chances that some kind of pest or insect will show up in tall fescue turf.
Requirements to care
Materials required
- Tall fescue grass feed
- Weed killer
- Pest controller
Tools required
- Mowing machine
- Trimmer
- 2 Long handle spraying bottle(1 for weed killer, 1 for pests)
Tips to care Tall Fescue
To keep your tall fescue grass healthy, weed-free, and pest-free, the following tips can help you follow using DIY methods-
- Mowing height
To keep tall fescue healthy, you need to know the right height for mowing and be patient about the mowing schedule timings. Don't mow fast or in short periods until required.
The best height range for tall fescue for mowing is 3 to 4 inches above the ground. If it is taking time to grow bigger, then make sure to check its health. Don't mow tall fescue grass every week.
- Irrigation scheduling
In summer(in cool climates) don't get high temperature increases so you can depend on irrigation weekly.
But before starting the irrigation in summer, don't forget to start after checking the turf moisture. If it is enough then the next irrigation should be in the next three days about 2 inches in the entire lawn. Later, you can keep it every week at 2 inches regularly.
- Pest controlling
To control pests naturally, you need to avoid the habitable conditions of pests. The easiest and simplest tip to control pests in lawns is to clean your locality and avoid overwatering for a long time.
In case of an excessive number of pests, you can use natural pest killers in spray bottles.
- Controlling weeds
Weeds are very common in summer because of regular moisture and spring feed to the lawn.
To avoid weeds like dandelions, clover, chickweeds, and thistle weeds you need to act initially. Use handpicking method to pick all the weeds up cleanly.
In case of invasion of weeds in tall fescue lawn, you need liquid weed killers that you need to spray on them. Be careful while spraying organic weed killers.
- Summer feed usage
Summer feed is very important for tall fescue grass. Instead of using organic compost here, I suggest you use high-quality lawn feeds like Scott's turf builder in your tall fescue lawn.
Summer feed gives a boost to the tall fescue and it gets help to grow longer and establish itself within the next few weeks again to get a peak growth rate.
Should you buy a professional lawn care subscription for this?
Well, not necessarily. But only on one condition, you should've knowledge and experience in applying fertilizers and weed killers to lawns before.
In case you are a busy person, you can call a local lawn care company on particular notes of only summer care. Otherwise, they may force you to buy their annual subscription unnecessarily.
Also, if you are a beginner, then this year you should ask for professional help and look at it closely. You can ask your queries to understand the procedures and then next time you can start practicing DIY.