That lawn looked so green and lush this spring. You didn`t even mind mowing it.
Now it has turned brown because of too little rain and too much heat. You`d give anything to cut it, but it`s not growing.
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Don`t despair, says Galen Gates, the manager of horticulture collections at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. Your grass will probably grow again, he said. It just needs a little help.
Shrubs and trees may be a different matter, though. They may need extra help, Gates said.
Days like Monday, at least until the rains came in the evening, are cruel to lawns and shrubbery, not to mention human beings. Monday`s official high temperature was a 101 degrees at 2 p.m. at O`Hare International Airport, tying the record for this date set in 1934. At the lakefront, it reached 102 at 3 p.m., and at Midway Airport, it reached 102 at 2 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.
The last time the official temperature in Chicago hit 101 was on July 10, 1989, according to Evert Schmidt of the Central Weather Service.
And Commonwealth Edison said it ”met the greatest demand for electricity by its customers in history” on Monday. Between 3 and 4 p.m., the demand was 17,733,000 kilowatts power, surpassing a mark that had stood since 1988. On Aug. 17 of that drought-plagued year, the demand reached 17,459,000 kilowatts. Edison used all 36 of its large power-generating units, the company said.
The latest 30-day outlook from the National Weather Service, for mid-July through mid-August, called for continued above-normal temperatures for most of Illinois.
However, the National Weather Service forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday offered the encouraging prospect of a break from the heat.
”Cooler and less humid,” the forecast said, ”highs in the lower or middle 80s. . . . Tuesday night, fair and cooler with lows from the upper 50s inland to the upper 60s near the lake. Wednesday, sunny with highs in the lower 80s.” The forecast for Thursday through Saturday called for daily highs mostly in the 80s and daily lows in the 60s.
But no more rain is in the forecast, so people may cool off, but that grass will still suffer.
If yours has a yellowish-brown cast, like most, it`s dormant. If it`s tending toward white, it may be dead and beyond help.
Most lawns in the Chicago area are made up of different types of bluegrass, which is hardy and can survive even if it goes dormant for a while, Gates said.
Giving a dormant lawn about one-quarter of an inch of water every two weeks will help it survive, Gates said.
He suggested that about a half-hour of watering every two weeks would be enough to maintain it until the weather becomes more favorable. To make sure the lawn is getting that quarter-inch, put a coffee cup under the sprinkler and check its depth in a half hour, he said.
More water would certainly help, but Galen said intensive watering
”doesn`t make sense ecologically” even with Lake Michigan`s abundant supplies. And watering is quite expensive. Chicago has raised its water rates, and scores of towns that rely on wells have restricted or even banned sprinkling.
And Gates said lawns should not be fertilized at this time.
Shrubs and trees, particularly those that were planted this year, also need special care, Gates said. A good, thorough soaking of about an inch every two weeks will maintain them through the dry spell, he said.
Just letting water dribble from a hose is one way to do this. This soaking, rather than a few light waterings, helps draw roots deeper into the soil where they stay cooler, Gates said.
In addition, Gates suggested mulching the soil around shrubs and trees. Use wood chips, ground-up bark or compost as mulch to deter weeds, retain water in the soil and keep the soil temperature lower, protecting roots from damage, he said.
”Mulch is the best investment people can make,” he said. A 2-inch layer of mulch can make an ”incredible difference,” he said.
Not all plants, however, will survive.
If the lawn`s coloring is yellow to white, ”you`re losing it,” he said. The period of dormancy has ended, and the grass has died. The only green will come from crabgrass, actually an annual weed that thrives in hot dry weather, he said.
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Gates said that a good solution is to plant parts of a damaged lawn with fescue instead of bluegrass.
Fescue, which has been considered a weed, has a wider blade than bluegrass and is much more tolerant of heat and drought.
The Botanic Garden, whose lawns have been plagued by the heat and drought as well as the trampling by thousands of visitors, is switching over from bluegrass to fescue, he said.