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Will grass recover if not watered?

bédébédé Posts: 3,095
in Problem solving

I wonder if forum members have experience of their lawn’s recovery after a long dry period with no watering, or will keep a look out to report later. 

In 1977 I sewed a front lawn with Sutton’s “SummerDay” seed strain, claimed to germinate quickly to give a fine lawn. It did.  Although other grasses have later invaded in a small way.  The most problematic weeds in a fine lawn are weed-grasses.   

Last summer British Gas contractors dug a hole in our lawn for gas pipe renewals.  Turfs were dug up amateurishly and relaid by different people.  In the many soil-rich patches they scattered coarse rye seed before I could stop them.  The consequent rye grass patches need mowing twice as often and have continued to flourish during the long dry spell.  These now dominate a small area. 

Elsewhere the lawn is brown; two types, rust-brown and grey-brown.  It is my experience that the rust-brown patches grow back and the grey-brown may have  died.  After a drought-finishing downpour last week and heavy rain today, this looks like the way things are heading.

 

 location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
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  • Dave HumbyDave Humby Posts: 1,145
    The simple answer is some will and some won't. Some species of grass are far more drought tolerant than others. Some die off, some go dormant and recover.

    My local golf club lost areas of fairways during the last two dry summers that required reseeding. The greenstaff said they would not have recovered.
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    Mine turns brown in summer fairly often and so far has always grown back, but sometimes patchily. I don't know what the original seed/turf was but it most likely dates back to when the house was built, around 1950, so it's a right old mix of different types of grass now. I usually scarify hard in the autumn following a dry summer (and less hard following a damper summer when it's stayed green) and oversow any thin areas with some fine grass seed to try to counteract the tendency for coarse weed grasses to dominate. Last time I used a shady lawn mix from B&Q containing mostly bents and fescues, and chucked down the spent compost from my tomato plants on the same area, and that area seems to be a little more drought - tolerant than the rest this time around.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    There's no point fretting about it till September is well under way as that's the best time dor autumn lawn treatments such as scarifying and re-seeding.   By then you should have had some rain and it will be cooler so the grass will be showing signs of recovery.  

    Assuming it does green up again, give it a chance to grow strong again and don't go all out on the scarifying till late September which will still give you plenty of time to re-sow bare bits and get them growing before it gets cold again in November/December.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • KT53KT53 Posts: 9,016
    My lawn is starting to green back up, although a fair percentage of that is weeds!.  The grass is regrowing as well.
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    I'm fairly confident that mine will green up too, if we get enough rain over the coming weeks.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • bcpathomebcpathome Posts: 1,313
    Yes it will come back green eventually.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited August 2022
    I think it does partly depend on how much footfall certain areas get. Some public spaces and park will not recover on their own, no. My next door neighbour had a load of building work done and builders stomped all over the place. I don't think that all the lawn come back and it will need re-seeding.
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    I'm getting a loy of "hope" messages.  Perhaps after a month or two you will report your real observations of 2022 non-watering.  I will report later too.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Well, going back to the long hot dry summer of '76 .... our lawn was brown for weeks and weeks ... not a blade of green ... it was thoroughly played on by a four year old boy on his trike,  his friends and a large dog ... it was never watered, scarified, fertilised or anything ... the following year it was green and lawn like ... not a bowling green 'tis true, but it never had been one of those.  

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I'm sure green things will sprout in my lawn. Some of it will be grass. That's good enough for me.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
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