Every lawn has to have a couple fundamental things to be healthy. They are (in order of importance):
#1 - Sunlight 🌞 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BL4DbY5GGI&t=40s
#2 - Water / Irrigation 💦
#3 - Lawn Food 🍌🍎🥦🍗 (otherwise known as fertilizer) https://youtu.be/gDW3Lx2X4k8
One of my constant talking points is that a north florida lawn has 3 fundamental ingredients to thrive: Sun, Water, and Food (Fertilizers and Soil Amendments). If it has all three, grass will grow over concrete (Don't look at me like I'm crazy - if it didn’t, we wouldn’t need edgers). If you’re missing one of those three things, the lawn won’t see any major improvements. Today, I want to discuss the importance of water, or more importantly how you can tell if your lawn problem is water-related.
If your lawn developed brown spots in spring or fall in the sunny areas, I’d venture to guess that your problem is water-related, especially if in the shade it is doing okay. Most of the lawn issues we see in spring and fall are from the dry spells we experience. These brown spots during droughts are generally caused by one of two things if you have an Irrigation system: Improper irrigation coverage or incorrect watering times.
Imagine filling a gallon bucket with water and setting it out in your yard. When you check your bucket a week later, you’re going to find it still has water, but you’ve lost an inch or so from evaporation. That’s what happens to your lawn and landscape plants if the evaporation isn’t replaced by rain and/or irrigation water. If you had the bucket of water in full sun, it would experience more evaporation than one in deep shade. Also, a bucket put out in summer would lose more to evaporation than one in winter.
All of that is just to explain that drought stress is most prevalent in the sunny areas of your lawn and in the driest times of the year.
How can you be sure it's drought stress? Good news! St. Augustine and Zoysia lawns are very easy to diagnose drought stress in.
Both leaves have a midvein that acts as a “spine” for each individual blade of grass, allowing it to open and close as needed. Healthy, well-watered grass blades will appear almost completely flat and totally open. When grass begins to dry out, the blade will close in half upon itself, to reduce its exposure to the sun and thus reduce its need for water.
This will also give the grass a “hazy” look, as the backs of the blades are not as deep a green as the enclosed fronts.
In addition to making sure you get enough water on your lawn, it is just as important to not get too much as well. Ever heard the old saying about there being "Too much of a good thing?" This is the case with water too, especially in the shady areas of your lawn. Not allowing your Gainesville lawn to dry out (whether it's St. Augustine or Zoysia) will cause it to get what's commonly called 'brown patch fungus' and it will damage your lawn if not handled appropriately.
Two Quick Tips to Avoid Over or Under Watering Your Lawn:
-Run your irrigation early in the morning. I set mine to start at 4AM.
-Adjust your irrigation times to the seasons. Increase watering in spring and fall's dry spells (Gainesville, Jacksonville, and St. Augustine, FL weather - but it could be different in your area?) and decrease in winter's cold spell.
If you have the right amount of water on your lawn and are wondering about the other two basic needs for a healthy Gainesville lawn, please see our videos about the other two basic needs: Sunlight and Nutrients by clicking the individual links.
We hope this was helpful in understanding the basic needs of your North Florida Lawn. If we can help with your lawn's health, irrigation system, or lawn drainage - please call our office at (352) 290-8715 or (904) 364-1166 or email our office at info@themasterslawncare.com.