Carolina Lawns: Preparing for the Summer Months

Samuel Barrick
May 30, 2024
2 min read

With 90°F days right around the corner, preparing for these hot summer months is essential to keep your fescue looking at its best. Here are a few tips to follow and a plan of actions to keep your lawn strong throughout the summer

Controlling Weeds Applying a post-emergent herbicide application will kill many weeds that are competing for space in your lawn. Removing weeds will reduce competition for sunlight, space, water, and root growth of your fescue. As the temperature heats up, certain weeds can germinate and grow much better in the summer months than fescue. Crabgrass, lespedeza, goosegrass, dallisgrass are a few weeds to watch out for this summer.
Summer Fertilizer and Micro-Nutrient Application While you might have heard not to apply fertilizer during the summer, this is actually a misunderstanding. Nitrogen, the first number on a fertilizer analysis, should be reduced during the summer months, but other ingredients like potassium and micro-nutrients are essential to keep your lawn growing strong. We recommend applying a high potassium fertilizer during the early summer months (May-June) to promote deep root growth. Along with micro-nutrients during the summer to improve the color of your lawn.
Supplementing Water During a normal summer, rain will be irregular. Having an irrigation system or hand watering is the best way to keep your lawn growing during the summer. Here are few recommendations to use as we come into the summer. First, use deep watering on a weekly bases to supplement rain. Once we are in the hottest parts of the summer, you can increase watering more often, every other day or every three days. Second, if you have a good rain, there is no need to run your irrigation system. This will only waste water and overwatering your fescue will result in a shallow root system.
Fungicide Application When nighttime temperatures reach 70°F consistently at night and evening thunderstorm are likely, these are the perfect conditions for disease in your lawn. We recommend applying a preventive application of a fungicide to reduce the disease pressure on your lawn. Fungicides only last in the plant for 30 days. It is important to apply fungicides every 30 days during the summer to keep your fescue protected from diseases.
Bio-stimulants & Soil Surfactants If you are wanting your lawn that extra 1% better, consistently applying bio-stimulants and soil surfactants during the summer will keep your lawn at its best. These applications can applied every 2-4 weeks for best results. The bio-stimulents will help your lawn fight off disease and recover from drought conditions. Soil Surfactants will move any available water to the root zone. This will keep your roots hydrated, improving your fescue's results during drought and stress conditions.