Your Lawn’s Health: A Drought Care Checklist

Grand Junction, CO, is already seeing the impact of 2020’s drier weather. If you’re concerned about the state of your lawn and foundation, you can still take steps to protect your investments from damage using this lawn health and drought care checklist.

Caring for Your Lawn Before A Drought

If at all possible, you will want to try and prepare your lawn for a drought before the worst of the dry spell hits. You can do so by:

• Auditing your dirt – Before you can invest in any specific grasses, plants, or lawn-preserving measures, you’ll want to determine what kind of soil you’re working with. With the help of a professional, try to determine what your lawn is primarily made of. If you find that you live on bentonite clay, you will want to take different steps to protect your home from a heaving foundation than you would if you lived on more organic soil.
• Using a sprinkler system – When you install a sprinkler system around your home and lawn before a drought, you ensure that you have the means to keep your soil moist even without rain. As such, your soil will remain healthy and won’t give way to gaps as frequently as soil that goes entirely unwatered.
• Planting grasses and plants that can resist droughts – You can also invest in grasses and plants that are drought-resistant. This way, you can have these plants establish root systems throughout your yard that can better hold your soil in place. In the same breath, these plants are less likely to die off due to a lack of rain.

When you’re looking for drought-resistant grasses and plants to add to your yard, consider:

• Bahiagrass
• Sheep fescue
• Buffalo grass
• Canada bluegrass
• Zoysiagrass
• Redtop
• Bermudagrass

Caring for Your Lawn During A Drought

It can be difficult to predict when and where in Colorado a drought will hit hardest. As such, it’s often easiest to try and respond to the dry weather when it’s already taken hold. Luckily, there are things you can do to stave off the worst effects of a drought even as it’s in progress. These include:

• Stay on top of weather developments in your area – You’ll want to do what you can to follow your state’s announcements regarding the dryness in your area. Staying informed can help you better know when to run your sprinkler system and when to keep it off for a few days.
• Mow less – It’s a misconception that’s led many homeowners to believe that a shorter lawn requires less moisture. In fact, by letting your lawn grow, you allow the grasses you’ve planted to more fully develop. As a result, they’ll be able to better secure your soil, preventing the kind of shifting that could otherwise damage your foundation.
• Watch your lawn for signs of damage – You’ll also want to keep an eye on your lawn for signs of localized damage. In doing so, you can better understand which parts of your lawn are most in need of extra moisture.
• Wait to invest in re-invigoration – That said, you should not try and bring your lawn back up to full health in the midst of a drought. Instead, keep track of the areas that need the most care and give them enough water to keep the soil moist. You can, instead, plan to enact your re-invigoration efforts in the days after a drought breaks.

Caring for Your Lawn After A Drought

Even when the first rains after a drought come in, you’ll need to actively care for your lawn. If you haven’t been using a sprinkler system, it’s possible that the welcome rain will skip past your plants and grasses and instead come into contact with your foundation.

To continue protecting your lawn and home after a drought, consider:

• Assess the damage – Determine which parts of your lawn have suffered the most from the drought. It’s these areas that you’ll want to give particular attention when looking into repairs.
• Use compost and fertilizer carefully – You can begin to apply compost and fertilizer to the parts of your lawn you want to bring back to life. You need to do so infrequently to keep from overwhelming the areas with nutrients.
• Mulch your beds – Mulch can also help you control the flow of water around your lawn and landscaping beds. You’ll want to keep mulch around your plants and around the perimeter of your home to prevent rainwater from rushing toward your foundation.
• Keep using your sprinkler system – You should also continue to use your sprinkler system to keep your soil healthy. While you don’t want to overwater your lawn, keeping the soil moist will help keep too much water from reaching your foundation or ruining your plants’ roots.

Protecting Your Lawn and Foundation

You don’t have to fight to protect your lawn and foundation alone. The professionals working in the Grand Junction, CO, area are familiar with the kinds of impacts a yearly drought can have on your home. You can reach out to Foundation Repair of Western Colorado for a home inspection before, during, or after a drought to better understand what kind of damage you may be dealing with. In turn, contractors can provide you with a free quote on the repairs you may need to bring your lawn and foundation back up to full health.