The Grass Doctor

Recovering from vacation - scalped lawn?

I was on vacation for 2 weeks and returned to a scene from George of the Jungle. There were Viet Cong hiding in my lawn, that's how long it got. Now, I normally mow once per week to 3" long. I have a cool season lawn and live in a mild temperature area (70F to 80F daily). This grass grows about 2 inches per week. With this regimen, the lawn has been in great shape all Summer long. Very green, very thick and strong. Like I'm supposed to, I set my mower to its highest setting (5") and immediately mowed after returning from vacation. Each week, I reduced the setting 1". I just finished the 3rd mowing since coming back from vaction, so it is back to 3". My goal was to gradually reduce the height of the lawn back to 3" where it belongs over the past 3 weeks. However, at each mowing the lawn looked pretty bad and now it looks totally scalped. Based on all I've read on the 'net, I've mowed the lawn back to 3" too quickly. How do I best recover from this scalped lawn?

Public Comments

1. The best advice I can give you at this point is to give it LOTS of water, and no fertilizer. Give it a chance to recover; no fertilizer for at LEAST a month, so you don't end up burning it even worse. Love the comment about the Viet Cong - good to hear from somebody from my own era ;-)
2. It it was healthy to begin with, and it sounds like it was, then I would just fertilize and water.
3. I would bet your previous practices will now pay off. Since you have maintained your lawn at a responsible and healthy height for some time- I would bet the rooting will soon lean to a healthy recovery. This may not happen until fall - though. Based on the fact 99% of the USA is under major heat and humidity... which is bad for cool season grasses. Continue your normal routine and when the weather breaks give it a boost of nitrogen. I would caution too much water-, it may be dormant, the water- particularly during humid weather- may encourage fungus. This is a very common lawn problem this time of year. If what you have on the lawn begins to lay down and stick to the earth- and remain wet... iy won't take long for the fungus among us to start eating.
4. water 4 times a week and keep mowing the lawn at 3" then when it looks better go back to 3 times a week
5. Been there, done that.....ha, ha, ha! Water, water, water. It will be back before you know it.
6. Listen to Jason F!!!!! Wait until the weather cools a bit before fertilizing and water, water, water is not the answer, answer, answer! It sounds like your lawn has a good root system already in place and it's just going through a bit of a shock right now. Give your lawn some more time and it will look as green as ever!
7. Sounds like it might have gotten hot where you live now, and that could be part of the problem. Water it good, no fertilizer and stop cutting it until it greens up a little.