Tips on Preparing your garden, yard for spring
Now is a perfect time to be thinking about what needs to be done for the lawn and garden. I'm going to start with one of the most important items, even though you won't be able to accomplish the task until the ice and snow melt. It's time to get the leaves and pine straw off the lawn and excess material out of the plant beds in the garden. Grass and shrubs...
READ MORE

Burn Baby Burn: How to Treat Your Sun Scorched Lawn
courtesy of lawnandgardenmagic.com

No matter how you try to avoid it, your lawn may end up sun scorched for one reason or another. Even if you try to prevent scorching through proper maintenance and drainage, there are also some simple ways to cure this problem once it occurs.

Scorching occurs when your grass turns brown due to the heat of the sun. Grass is more likely to be damaged during the dry and drought periods of summer. Reductions or restrictions on water usage often make it more likely that your grass will get scorched.

New sod can be particularly prone to damage, especially if you're not watering the new sod as often as it requires. Watering often helps to establish its root system underground. Your lawn can also be burned by the use or overuse of some pesticides or improperly applied fertilizers.

To avoid scorching, consistent watering is obviously important. If your grass is scorched and not dead, then water alone might be able to revive it back to its former state. When watering, make sure you water deeply, letting it soak in at least six inches deep. If you're only doing shallow watering, the roots come much closer to the surface and are more prone to damage by extreme heat and cold because they are exposed more.

You may also consider adding sugar to your grass. Really, no kidding. Silly as this may sound, it'll benefit the organism and microbes and help enrich your soil. You should spread one pound of sugar for every three hundred square feet on your lawn. What you should try to avoid is using a lot of fertilizer or weed killer as these kill the microbes that are beneficial to your grass and which you'll need to get back to the green color you probably love. Adding sugar will free those microbes and keep them alive, believe it or not.

Create An Incredible Lawn In Just 4 Days

If sun scorching has killed areas of your grass, you can fill or plug those bare spots with sod, which is less expensive than replanting your entire lawn. You can remove the dead sections and then add new sod to those sections or, depending on the season, you can start to re-grow your grass with fresh grass seed. However, be aware that grass seed can be tricky at the best of times and you could end up with a very patchy looking lawn. New sod may be expensive, but if you're only using small patches to fill in dead spots, it won't break the bank.

In a worst-case scenario, you'll have to re-sod or re-seed your entire lawn. As daunting as this may sound, it's sometimes the only solution, particularly if the damage is extensive. If you have to do this, then you should make sure you look after your newly planted grass in order to prevent the damage from reoccurring. The last thing you want is to start an unending cycle of seeding, scorching and re-seeding.

The sun is not the only thing that can do a great deal of damage to your lawn. So can fertilizers and weed killers that have been improperly applied. When  applying fertilizer, read the directions carefully and only use it at the right time of the year. Certain products, if used in the summer, will burn your lawn, even though they may be fine to use during other seasons. The best solution (again) is watering, but also consider applying activated charcoal to your grass. This can detoxify it and reverse the effects of improperly applied weed and feed. If the damage is too extensive, then your only option will be to re-sod or seed to bring the grass back to what it once was.

So, when dealing with a sun-scorched or burned lawn, the most important thing you can do is to give your lawn the love and care it needs. A little TLC will help prevent sun scorching and it will also help cure it. If your lawn is sun-scorched then water is obviously your best friend as it will help return your lawn to it former green glory.