All The Leaves Are Brown - But Not For Long

  

Baked chamomile on their own individual wrappers

I had a ‘chamomile crisis’ last week.  Only a few days before the heatwave I moved about 500 plug grown chamomile plants into the polytunnel to give them a boost as it was a bit chilly. I took my eye off them for a while and the result was cooked plants, totally shriveled root and leaves.  Growing in small cells does make the plants very susceptible to temperatures both hot and cold.  The trays were on a large table raised from the ground so there was no cooling earth to save them so they all cooked in their own small 3cm square ovens. 

I did have some other plants on the ground and they survived.  In this case the plants perished purely because of the heat and not a lack of water as they were kept constantly wet and it was the outside edge plants that were hit first. It was probably like dropping the plants into a boiling kettle.

We can see the same thing happen on the edge of lawns where the grass meets the concrete paths and tarmac where the soil is generally shallow. Although in this week’s case it’ll also be because of a lack of water too. So how do we stop our lawns from going brown?  It’s not really something we here in Inishowen have to think about very often but this week was an exception.  

Some lawns are hit harder than others depending on a lot of factors. 

 

The lawn aspect - south facing will get more sun.

The soil type - sandy soil dries out a lot faster than a clay or loam soil.

A lot of us are seeing old regular patches of brown grass appearing on the lawns like unearthing an archaeological dig where old paving slabs have been covered up and grassed over. The brown areas show that the sandy soil under the slabs don’t hold as much moisture as the loamy soil surrounding it.

The type of grass seed being used for the lawn.

Rye grass will go brown really quickly but others such as Tall fescue(recommended about 70% in the mix), red fescue and deep rooted meadow grass will be a lot more resistant to scorching and keep green even under trees.

Drainage and the lack of watering.

A mature lawn could need as much as 2.5 to 4 cm of water a week to keep the colour and on large lawns this would mean emptying the reservoir.

The overuse of fertilizers as we overcompensate to try and bring back a bit of colour. 

Any form of feeding will only damage the grass even more as a lot of these chemicals require water as an activator.

Other patches can be caused by dog wee as it’s not washed away and children playing. These will be brown patches for now but if the dryness persists the area will become a bare patch which might need a bit of care to restore. These patches can be reseeded when the weather cools or you could move sods from other areas of the garden where they won’t be missed.

Preventing damage

The two main factors for lawn damage in the summer are heat and dryness so the simplest solution is to water when you can trying to keep a bit of consistency by not letting the grass totally dry out (hosepipe bans permitting), resist the temptation to feed with any type of nitrogen fixers and if you must cut the grass (some of us just can’t help it) then set the mower to a really tall cut. The tall grass will retain moisture better, hold in some cool air and cause less stress than scalping would cause. 

New turf

New turf hasn’t had a chance for the roots to penetrate deeply into the ground so will be very susceptible to drying out. It’s a real balance as too much water would cause the roots to remain shallow and stay near the surface and too little will see the sods dying really quickly.  Hopefully if you do have a newly laid turf lawn you will be able to water it often .

Preparing good drainage and a humus rich soil on both a turf and seeded lawn will save a lot of hassle down the line as the grass will be able to cope with all our weather conditions and generally do away with the need to feed the grass.

Don’t despair though if your landscape has turned yellow and brown. The grass will soon recover as I’m sure as you are reading this there will be a few drops of rain hitting the window. Living in Ireland really does make me realise that water is our best friend in the garden and it’d be a scorched, dusty place without it.