It's more of a case of soil tempature and temp in general. During drought/summer stress is not the time to encourage root growth. You can't fool the plant. It knows what time of year it is believe it or not. Roots are coming to the surface. A plant actually goes into dormacy as a way to survive itself. You'll be surprised how much of your lawn comes back this fall when the soil and air tempatures get back to ideal conditions for plant growth. You dont' really want to pull it out of dormacy right now. Nor will the plant want to. It would be more stressfull for it to come out and go back in. Simply not ideal for growth. Just know the plant goes dormant in order to survive. I'll bet most of it comes back between fall and next spring.
The high today is supposed to be 102 F. Hopefully I wont have to reseed my lawn this fall but if I do, odds are so will everybody esle in our neighborhood.
That sucks for you RC...That has been our problem the last couple of years. However I did not have to re seed but my plethora of grass types did come back. I think the last time I mowed the grass last year was around this time b/c it turned brown and didn't grow at all. This year has been one of the wettest ever for us in SE NC. Our crops and lawns for the most part look great...I am just thankful that the crops are doing better this year b/c the farmers took a big hit the last couple....
I would say your lawn is dead, but you were likely watering too early in the afternoon. 5:30 in the summer is just right before the sun rises and 5:00 pm is still one of the hottest times of the day. Try watering right before dusk and you might kick things back to life a bit.
Reporting the current tempurature on a web forum is a skill set many struggle with. I'm gifted in that regard. I think I will go to the thread about things we are good at and add this the very long list I have already generated.
I already excel at killing it with no effort at all. That took care of it. Ergo, I mastered lawn care.
I'm trying to kill mine.... but that crabgrass just won't die. 100.8 on my weather station today. Right now at 6 PM it's still 96. We aren't used to those temps up here. I walked my brothers dog at noon today. Since then I've stayed in the air conditioning.
I took my digital thermometer probe and stuck it two inches into the ground in a shady spot today at 6 pm. It read 104F. I find that hard to believe but thats what it read.
Just remember, if the grass starts growing again you didn't do that. You can thank the environmental scientists who said there was global warming, the weatherman for predicting rain and Scott's for employing the people who make your seed and fertilizers.
