How to Fix Dry Grass in Your Lawn

Just because you live in an arid climate doesn't mean your yard has to suffer from dry grass. And while water conservation is important in the desert, your lawn and plants need a bit, too. Dry grass appears brown, dead, flat, and crunchy, while healthy grass is rich green, lush, soft, and has a bounce when stepped on.

Lawns must be watered more frequently in desert regions when temperatures rise, humidity levels drop, and the sun's heat intensifies. However, it is possible to prevent dry grass when water is limited. Keep reading to learn how to fix dry grass in your lawn using a minimal amount of water.

What Causes Dry Grass?

Dry grass can happen in as little as a week without adequate moisture and care. The entire lawn can dry out when drought, disease, and pests appear, or the grass is neglected.

• Drought: In a dry climate, watering correctly means watering less. Weaning a lawn from its over-reliance on water is the first and most important step to a more water-efficient lawn. Grass needs about 1 to 1.5 inches of water a week to survive and thrive.
• High heat: During high heat periods, foot traffic and overly maintaining your lawn can lead to its demise, so keep these practices at a minimum. Keep grass mowed taller to shade the soil and keep roots cooler. 
• Insufficient soil: Compacted soil, imbalanced soil pH, or soil without enough nutrients can lead to dry grass as the grass lacks the proper organic matter to grow and thrive.
• Fertilizer burn: Over-fertilizing your lawn can cause it to burn as the salt concentration in the fertilizer can seep up all of the moisture in the grass. Choose a balanced fertilizer or one for your specific type of grass.
• Diseases: Brown patches, leaf blight, and powdery mildew are some of the diseases that can affect your lawn. Be sure to aerate and dethatch your lawn in cooler seasons to help prevent disease and the spread of fungal bacteria.
• Pet urine: A dog's urine contains all sorts of elements that are not good for your grass, including nitrogen. If their urine has too much nitrogen, it spells disaster for your grass and you can expect dead, brown patches to appear where they use the bathroom.
• Pests: While pests enjoy munching on healthy grass, they like dry grass, too. Wilting grass, chewed blades, holes, and brown patches are all signs of a pest infestation be it insect or animal. Find the root cause of the infestation and treat it at the source to salvage your lawn.
  

How to Fix Dry Grass in Your Lawn

Fix dry grass on your lawn with several steps, depending on the stage of life of your grass. If it is dried and damaged beyond repair, start reseeding to grow new grass. If the cause of damage was due to over or under-watering, over-fertilization, poor soil, or an infestation, you can take steps to remedy the lawn back to health.

Amend the Soil

It is difficult to amend the soil of an established lawn, but when seeding or sodding a new lawn (take care not to overseed the grass), amend the underlying soil with organic material or compost to help the soil retain moisture that the roots of the grass plants can utilize. Sandy soils drain so quickly that lawns have difficulty obtaining the water they need, while soils heavy in organic material can support lawns much more effectively. 

With an established lawn, you can maintain and improve the amount of moisture-retaining organic material by mowing with a mulching mower that keeps grass clippings on the lawn or by annually top-dressing the lawn with compost or another organic material. You can also balance the soil pH and prevent it from being destroyed by pet urine and pests.

Water Deeply and Infrequently

Watering your lawn between 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. is ideal before the sun evaporates the water. However, the common method of automatically watering a lawn every morning is poor practice, as it trains a lawn to need this gulp of water daily. Turfgrasses that get this kind of regular shallow watering tend to grow shallow roots that will die if their daily water fix is denied. And with daily watering practice, much of the water evaporates away and wastes precious moisture. One weekly watering under the right conditions is much more effective than daily shallow watering. 

Limiting watering frequency will gradually train your lawn to send down deeper root systems that will be much more efficient at using whatever moisture is in the soil. Even water-loving grass species like Kentucky bluegrass can survive and thrive with less water. When you water in a dry climate or during periods of drought, do it when evaporation is minimal.

Treat Pest Infestations

Insects can be blamed for contributing to a dry lawn, but the most common pests are cinch bugs which feed on grass blades. Rabbits, groundhogs, and deer can also destroy your grass. Have an exterminator treat your infestation with insecticide spray so the pests don't spread to other areas of your lawn or yard.

Fertilize Correctly

If you're experiencing hot and dry conditions during the summer or experiencing drought, it's best to avoid nitrogen fertilizer because overfertilizing can burn the lawn. To feed your grass and keep it healthy, opt for use once the weather cools down, such as into the fall or winter.

Reduce Stress

Beyond training a lawn to survive with less water, other management techniques support your lawn during times of drought. Avoid significant lawn care maintenance during a drought, and take your pets to the dog park or on long walks rather than letting them play on the lawn.

Mowing is less necessary as hot, dry weather sets in since it slows the growth of the grass. Avoid mowing altogether during drought periods.

Choose the Right Mowing Height

Lawns are usually mowed too short, but cutting to a longer height in arid climates and drought conditions is essential. Grass blades (also called leaves) store most of the plant's moisture; longer grass means more water to supply the plant roots. Longer grass also provides shade to the soil, which keeps it cool and minimizes moisture evaporation.

Prioritize the Root System

During drought, grasses can go dormant, but unless there are local watering prohibitions, give just enough water to keep the roots alive. According to turf scientists, turfgrasses can go dormant for up to four weeks without permanent damage.

If a drought goes beyond four weeks, water deeply to rehydrate the grass slightly and wet the soil to a depth of 5 inches. Deep watering may not revive the green but will keep the root system alive.

Plant Drought-Tolerant Grasses

Some grass varieties have lower water needs in cool- and warm-season regions. A lawn can be replanted or resodded using a grass mix with lower moisture needs, or it can be converted more gradually by top seeding annually with seeds of a more suitable grass species. Over several years, the more drought-hardy grasses will thrive as others slowly die. 

Kentucky bluegrass is the most prevalent lawn grass in cool-season regions and is very demanding for water needs. Even in cool-season climates, water availability is becoming a more serious issue, and many homeowners are now replacing Kentucky bluegrass with fescue grass that requires less water and is better able to withstand drought.  

In warm-season regions, drought-tolerant grasses have been coming into popularity for some time, especially in the southwestern United States. There are many choices for drought-tolerant grass species for warm-season climates. Grass species have been selectively bred to offer drought-tolerant cultivars; some thrive in year-round arid environments while others approach near-dormancy until the rainy season when they jump back into periods of growth.