A popular gardener has shared advice for homeowners struggling to care for their lawns this summer. Following several successive heatwaves, many Brits might feel like giving up on their grass. With high temperatures and hosepipe bans affecting many homes, it's not uncommon to see large swaths of brown grass covering previously healthy gardens. Fortunately, a green-fingered enthusiast has revealed exactly what to do if you're facing the common problem.
Gardener's Advice on Brown Lawns
Taking to TikTok, the presenter and content creator behind Gardening with Ish shared advice for his 190k followers. In a video that's been viewed over 30k times, the gardener said all is not lost if your garden looks a little worse for wear right now.
Ish told social media users: "It feels almost impossible to keep your lawn happy during this heat, but you may find it’s actually easier than you think. Today's gardening tips help you care for your lawn even in the hottest of weather, with a drought too. It may feel like it’s past its prime, but it’s got plenty of life in it."
What to Do with Brown Grass
Taking viewers into his garden, the presenter said: "You can probably see here that my lawn appears to be two completely different colours. I've got brown and crisp over there, and then quite a lush green behind me over there. And it's a little bit difficult trying to figure out what you're supposed to do when it's so conflicting. So I'm gonna go over it so that you can make sure you can get the best out of your lawn."
Ish continued: "First of all, let's start off with what's going on down here. It's brown, it's crispy. The last thing you want to do is remove any of that whatsoever. The best thing you can do is actually leave it, cause right now your grass has gone dormant.
"It's actually protecting itself by keeping this nice little mat here, which is stopping it from taking any moisture from the soil, but also keeping it cooler, protecting those roots, and that's the most important bit.
"Over time, this will dry and crisp off a little more, and when it starts to rain, you'll start to see flickers of green come straight back. That's the really cool thing about grass: it's actually quite resilient.
"This isn't dead; it was just hibernating. But you don't wanna be cutting this, you don't wanna be scarifying it, you don't wanna be feeding it. Leave it as is."
Mowing Tips for Green Grass
As for the green grass, Ish said to mow only on the highest setting. "The green at the back, however, is doing really well. As you can see, it's actually growing quite long, which is fantastic," he explained.
"Because it's got the shade of the tree, it's not overheating, so it's doing fine. Now, it's tempting to feed and cut as you would normally, but you don't want to stress this out, especially with the hot heat.
"So if you are gonna mow this, make sure you do it at the highest setting possible. Don't go too low. Don't stress it. You want to keep the bit underneath nice and cool. That's what's keeping this happy and healthy and holding in the moisture."
He concluded: "Now, as a result, over time, this will catch up. It will all be green and lush, and then you can resume normal mowing, normal feeding. But for now, let it recover. Don't stress it out. And if you can, water it where you can do. But until then, leave it be and cut high at the back."
