When the Idaho Falls summer hits its peak, your lawn feels the pressure just as much as you do. Our cool-season grasses thrive in spring and fall, but the high-desert heat can quickly push them into survival mode.
Heat stress happens when your turf loses moisture faster than it can take it up, leading to a lawn that looks flat, lifeless, and brown.
If you notice "ghost prints" that don't bounce back after you walk across the grass, your lawn is sending an urgent signal for relief.
The biggest challenge is knowing whether your grass is just dormant or actually dying. In Eastern Idaho, heat-stressed grass will often hunker down to conserve energy, but without the right intervention, that dormancy can turn permanent.
Helping your lawn survive the summer requires a strategic approach to mowing, watering, and timing your nutrients.
Heat stress happens when lawns lose too much moisture due to hot, dry weather. Cool-season grasses, as we have here in Idaho, are especially susceptible to extreme summer heat. They prefer fall, thanks.
Not sure if your lawn is suffering drought stress? Watch for a few key signs:
Grass blade tips turn brown. They might also curl.
Brown patches form on your lawn. This is tricky, though, because other lawn problems, from bugs to lawn diseases, turn grass brown, too.
How do you identify lawn heat stress vs fungus or insects? Consult with a lawn care pro to confirm the cause and ensure you’re getting proper treatment, if necessary.
“Ghost prints” appear. This sounds spooky and cool but it’s not good. When you walk across your grass, it doesn’t bounce happily back up after your foot leaves the ground.
A drought-stressed lawn lies flat and lifeless.
Be ready to come to the rescue:
Like everything in lawn care, it's better to be prepared for a problem than to react to it.
Putting these practices in place before warm weather arrives will give your lawn a head start on surviving stressful weather.
Brown grass can freak you out. Does it have lawn heat stress? Did it go dormant? Is it dead?
Cool-season grasses like the varieties here in Idaho love spring and fall, happily growing faster than you can mow them.
But when that 80-degree weather stresses them out, they can enter a summer dormancy period. The grass stops growing to conserve water and nutrients — it needs to chill out.
A dormant lawn is different than a dead lawn. When your lawn is dormant, it’s not actively growing. It looks dead, but deep down, the crown of the grass is still alive.
How to tell the difference?
Grab hold of a couple clumps of grass and tug. Does it pull right up, with no root system holding it in? It’s probably dead. But dormant grass in Idaho will still have a solid root system and resist your tug.
No worries. It’ll be back.
A healthy lawn doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of work and the right knowledge to nurture a lawn that can withstand heat stress.
If you want simple, hassle-free lawn care and landscaping services in Idaho Falls, ID that offers quality core lawn care services for a healthy, impressive lawn, right through summer, it doesn’t get easier than Lawn Buddies.
No stressing about which complicated combination of lawn care services will get you strong, healthy grass.
You don’t have time to fuss with all that. It’s summer! Give yourself a break.
Lawn Buddies features one premium, six-visit lawn care program that includes everything your lawn needs to grow healthy and green.
Fertilizer, weed treatments, and grub control, all wrapped up in six visits, each perfectly timed throughout the season, so your grass is green and strong and resists lawn heat stress.
We’ve got your back.
Got a few minutes? That’s all you need to get started. You can simply fill out a form, call us at (208) 656-9131 or read more about our services. Then, kick back and relax in your healthy, thriving yard and pest-free home.