The Lawn Care Guide - June

Now is the height of summer

With successive mowing you’ve reduced the cutting height, according to growth, to the summer height of cut. If you have an ornamental, high maintenance lawn you could give it a light top dressing of top soil to help keep the lawn smooth and reduce thatch.

The dry weather calls for watering and lawns need a good soaking that really penetrates the soil, not a light water that only encourages shallow rooting grass. Water thoroughly once or twice a week, depending on how hot it is, and preferably early morning or evening. Only really pampered grass will escape the browning, scorched patches with the sun at its hottest but the lawn will recover. Don’t though, confuse browned areas with one of the lawn’s enemies, brown patch fungus, which is ring-like and appears when it’s hot and humid. Water the area once a week and apply a lawn fungus control every other week for about six weeks.


In prolonged drought you might leave the collector off the garden tractor and switch to a mulching deck if you have one. The cuttings left on the grass will help to protect the lawn. It’s not too late to scarify if you have a problem with thatch. Clean up the debris afterwards and water well. Having talked about the dry weather, rainfall at the end of May and the beginning of the month has, for many areas, meant the mowing has had to be done twice a week, to stay on top of it and keep the lawn tidy.

If you haven’t applied weed killer that’s suitable for the lawn this is the last summer month in which to do so, the next period being September/October. If you don’t like the idea of using any concentrated synthetic chemicals you can implement an organic lawn care programme by controlling thatch, using the correct mowing techniques, with a mowing height of 2.5” minimum and making sure the blades are sharp and clean. When you apply organic fertiliser look for product with low ratios of nutrients e.g. 15% Nitrogen – 10% Phosphorous – 15% Potassium.