A ring of straw coloured grass that widens week by week in July is rarely a watering fault and rarely simple drought. On cool season lawns built from Kentucky bluegrass, annual meadow grass or fine fescue, those spreading circles usually…
On a warm, close July evening the lawn can seem to come alive as thousands of winged ants pour out of the grass at once and take to the air. It looks alarming, and every summer people reach for the…
You water a dry patch of lawn, or a summer shower passes over, and instead of soaking in the water sits on top in little beads or runs off to the edges. Underneath, the soil stays dust dry no matter…
Most lawn grasses grow as separate plants sitting side by side. Kentucky bluegrass does something the others cannot: it spreads sideways underground and knits the whole lawn into a single connected mat. That one trait, the rhizome, is what makes…
If your ryegrass lawn has thinned into ragged brown patches during a hot, sticky July and the tips of the blades look twisted, grey leaf spot is worth ruling in before you blame the drought. This fungal disease attacks perennial…
Reaching for the weedkiller on a hot, sunny afternoon feels like the obvious time to deal with the dandelions and clover taking over. It is also the time most likely to leave you with scorched grass and weeds that shrug…
Most lawn diseases creep. Pythium blight sprints. In the wrong weather it can turn healthy grass into greasy, collapsed streaks in a single night, and a large area can be lost in 24 to 48 hours. The conditions it needs…
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,…
