If a patch of your lawn has turned straw brown in early summer and watering does nothing to revive it, billbugs are worth ruling out before you blame the weather. These small weevils lay eggs inside grass stems, and the…
Small, round, straw coloured patches scattered across your lawn in summer, each about the size of a coin and rarely bigger than 5 to 8cm (2 to 3 inches), point to a fungal disease called dollar spot. Look closely in…
A ring of darker, faster growing grass appearing in your lawn through summer, sometimes with toadstools around its edge and a band of dead grass inside, is a fairy ring. It is caused by a fungus living in the soil,…
Most lawns die of thirst in summer because their owners water little and often, which is the opposite of what grass needs. The target is simple: roughly 25mm (one inch) of water a week during dry spells, delivered in one…
While ordinary grass lawns turn straw-brown in a long dry summer, a lawn with clover woven through it stays green with no watering at all. Clover roots reach deeper than grass roots, the plant pulls its own nitrogen from the…
The quickest way to lose a green lawn in a dry spell is to keep cutting it as short as you did in spring. Raise the mower by one notch before the hot weather arrives and the same lawn holds…
When sections of your lawn lift away like a loose rug in July and August, the trouble sits two to three centimetres (about one inch) below the surface. Fat white C-shaped grubs or leathery grey-brown larvae have been chewing the…
When a lawn turns brown in a summer drought, the instinct is to drag out the sprinkler and pour water on it. In most established lawns that is the wrong move. A brown summer lawn is usually not dying, it…
The fastest way to deal with ant hills in a lawn is also the gentlest: wait for a dry day, knock the loose soil flat with a stiff brush or the back of a rake, and brush it into the…
If pale patches of grass have suddenly appeared on your lawn over the past week or two, knit through with fine pink or red threads at the tips, you are looking at red thread. It is one of the most…
