Keeping Your Lawn and Landscape Green All Season Long
Like any plant in your garden or window box, your turf grass needs water to survive. While Iowa’s frequent rainshowers often fit the bill in spring, in summer it’s not so simple. With temperatures in the 80s and 90s, Iowa summers can be sweltering, and dry spells are common. While it’s normal for your turf grass to go into dormancy during this time, that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice a great-looking lawn and landscape! Keep your lawn ready for a summer cookout all season with these lawn care tips.
Lawn Health Care in Summer
Some of our friends have asked us whether they should stop their fertilization and weed control applications if the grass isn’t growing. On the contrary, since our fertilizers are slow-release, water-activated granules rather than a spray, your lawn will get the feeding it needs with the morning dew and summer storms, without the risk of burning. We also adjust the amount of fertilizer we put down. This will help your lawn rebound at the end of the season when temperatures cool down. Also, weeds take advantage of stressed lawns; leaving off your applications now might mean sacrificing your weed-free lawn or losing ground to tenacious weeds. Our technicians spot-spray in these conditions, meaning we target your weeds where they are, when they arise.
When Should I Water?
A period of dormancy during the hottest part of the summer is normal and natural for your grass — however, more than a month with scant rainfall means the ground around the grass roots is drying out and may result in some die-off. During very dry periods, water your lawn to about half an inch twice a week. However, don’t waste your water! If you water between 4 and 9 am, you won’t lose it to evaporation under the sun.
I Have an Irrigation System…
Excellent! Set your timer for that early morning time. There are rain-detector devices available for irrigation systems so your system will recognize and not turn on after a storm, or if your lawn has sufficient moisture, and we offer water-saving irrigation heads to keep money in your wallet and protect our natural resources!
We also offer a full service irrigation maintenance program! This includes:
- Irrigation Start-Up: In the spring we will re-attach your backflow prevention device (if removed for winter), turn water on for your system, run through each zone to check for broken heads, adjust sprinkler coverage, and make repairs as needed. At the same time, we help you customize your program so your system runs the desired amount of water and time.
- Backflow Certification: It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law! City code requires yearly testing of your backflow prevention device to ensure that it’s working properly and protecting your city water supply. Our state-certified technicians perform mandatory backflow prevention tests as required by city and state regulations.
- Midseason Checks: We offer midseason checks to help manage your irrigation system. This includes running through the system midseason to check for broken heads and leaks, adjusting sprinkler coverage and making repairs as needed. We can also help you adjust your controller to run the system based on weather needs– typically this is a drier time of the year when your irrigation system is required to run more often. This is helpful because irrigation systems typically run early in the morning when you might not see it run– therefore, you might not be aware of issues that need repaired.
- Irrigation Shut-Down/Winterization: In autumn, after your water is turned off to the system, we will blow out all remaining water in the system with compressed air to prevent freezing damage. If your backflow device is located outside we will remove the device and leave it with you to store in a heated area over the winter. If your backflow prevention device can be removed, it’s a very good idea to do so and keep it somewhere that will not freeze. Even if all water has been blown from the device, the plastic inner parts are subject to freeze damage and can break over the winter– and are surprisingly costly to repair!
- Repairs: We can make repairs to irrigation systems– as soon as you notice something looks wrong, give us a call! The sooner your system is in good repair, the better your lawn will look and the less money you will spend on wasted water.
What About My Flowers, Trees and Shrubs?
If you didn’t take advantage of mulch for your landscaping in the spring, it’s not too late. Mulch helps protect your plants from the dry conditions by creating a moisture-retaining buffer, and slowly breaking down to enrich the soil. Quality Care proudly offers bulk mulch sales in Iowa!
It’s also a good idea to mimic the conditions of the average rainfall, same as for your lawn — a half inch once or twice a week. A good way to test the amount of water reaching your plantings is to place an inexpensive rain gauge in the area and stop at the half-inch mark. Also, keep an eye out! Make sure all your plants are receiving that water.
For trees, try placing a hose on the ‘upstream’ side of your trees and set to trickle for a few hours. This slow, deep and heavy watering, once a week, should help protect your trees from stress.
We Can Help!
We can supply mulch for your landscaping and we can start up, maintain and repair your irrigation system. Should a severe drought set in, we’ve done it before and we can do it again: our watering trucks are ready and waiting to protect your lawn from die-off.