Last Updated on March 16, 2023 by Brian Beck
If you want a really hard time with your lawn, be sure to do the following. No, you probably will not experience total failure but you will set your lawn up for a lot of stress with areas that will give you problems along the way. Most of your defeat will come in the cost of water. You will deal with compacted soils, thick thatch, incessant weeds and a lawn that suffers the stress of heat and is slow to come out in the spring and goes dormant early.
The hard times start in September when the water is shut off early, ensuring that the roots do not have a chance to develop before it goes dormant in December. The horror continues throughout the winter as hydration is allowed to disappear and the roots face severe stress. Then the mites come out to play on south facing slopes in late winter. There will be days where the temperatures get above 60° but still no watering. The snow helps a little but is not adequate, the irrigation will not be turned on for a few months. In early April weeds start to pop up but they have not germinated, they are from last years germination in the fall. The soil begins to go hydrophobic and will take much more water to retain hydration when the irrigation begins.
The lawn will have a hard time unless you “get it going”. That will take a good synthetic fertilizer as the lawn is addicted to it and will not look good without it despite the fact that it is causing the soil to be compacted. The shallow watering that you will soon begin will ensure that the roots stay close to the surface both aggravating the thatch level and making sure that the roots get beat up by the summer heat, requiring even more water.
The aeration that you had was done prior to the irrigation being turned on and only got about 1/2″ deep, completely useless to get air to the roots along with the nutrients and water. In May you discover that there are brown spots that will not green up and they will stay that way because of winterkill. In the early summer when the heat comes out the lawn will get leaf blight because of the shallow watering and the inability of the water to get to the roots. This stress will only get worse until the fall when the cycle begins all over again and you sink deeper into the rut of the synthetic model.
Yes, if you want to destroy the lawn keep doing what everyone else is doing and neglect the quality of your soil and the biology in it. I promise you you will pay far more than you ever wanted to, that is until you discover the biological method…