Hot Weather Lawn And Garden Tips

Many lawns in Pine-Richland are turning brown following a string of 90+ degree days and very little rain. And many homeowners may be tempted to break out the sprinkler, but they could end up doing more harm than good, according to A&N Lawn Service President Phil Rizzitano.

"If you start watering your lawn in weather like this, you can't stop. It's all or nothing," he said. "Watering for a short period of time, infrequently will actually shock the grass, making the situation even worse."

Mike Weiner, owner of the Pittsburgh franchise of Naturalawn agrees.  He said that if you are going to water infrequently, do it for long periods of time such as 45 minutes to one half hour.  The goal is for the lawn to receive 1-1/2 inches of water per week - in two separate watering's of 3/4 of an inch each. Homeowners can place a can in their yard to catch the water to judge the amount received by the grass.

Weiner also says that those short, infrequent watering encourage the plant to keep its roots shallow, when the goal is a deep root system.  

Lawns that have gone completely dormant take much time and water to return to green, according to Weiner -  as long as the crown and root system have remained alive.

"We are getting into the danger zone," with dormant lawns, said Weiner.  "It wouldn't be a bad idea to sprinkle to keep the roots and crown alive."  The dormant grass crown and root system can only stay alive for about three to five weeks without water, he added.  

For June the average rainfall for the Wexford area (which includes part of Pine Township) is 4.3 inches and we received 1.59 he said, quoting Weather.com.  May was not much better, Weiner said. Even though the total May monthly rainfall of 3.66 inches looks on par with the average of 3.95 inches, a chunk of it -  1.83 inches - fell on one day.  That left many May days completely devoid of rain.

Annuals and vegetable gardens are also thirsting in this drought.

"They need constant watering, or they won't survive," said Rizzitano. "But more mature shrubs and perennials will hang in there without a lot of water, as long as you don't stress them by pruning them in the heat."

Rizzitano also suggests raising your mower blades and not cutting the grass below 3-4 inches to help offset the effects of the heat. 

When you water is equally important. Liz Frattare is the owner of  in Upper St. Clair.

“The best time to water a plant is before 10 o’clock in the morning. The worst time to water a plant is 2, 3 o’clock. You lose a lot of it to evaporation,” she said.  Weiner of Naturalawn agrees and advocates morning watering, too.

Actually, the worst time is as dusk approaches.

 “You never put your plants to bed wet. Don’t do it at 7 or 8 at night,” she says, or you probably will start to notice Mr. Mildew moving in.

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