KAMLOOPS LAWN MAINTENANCE TIPS: WATERING AND MOWING IN SUMMER HEAT

Maintaining your lawn in the heat of a Kamloops summer can be difficult. It’s often a task that takes more planning than just mowing once a week. For three seasons of the year, your grass needs to be taken care of, and sometimes you won’t know what to do! In this article of our Kamloops landscaping blog our team at Culture Care Landscaping will share some watering and mowing tips we have learned since we started providing lawn maintenance services in 2001!

As we all know, the Kamloops climate is very hot and dry throughout the year. This semi-arid climate leads to easily dried out lawns that quickly become brownish-yellow fields of stiff grass and tough weeds. Although this dry-ness can cause problems for your lawns, it’s not as difficult to keep the grass well-watered and looking great as you might think!

How Much Water Does My Lawn Need?

Despite the dry heat of Kamloops in summer and the by-laws to only water on even or odd days, there is no need to get anxious about not being able to water your lawn every day. If watered properly, most grass in Kamloops should be able to stay healthy even if you only water it twice a week. To keep it green it needs 2.5 cm of water each time you water it.

In Spring and Fall you can water about half as often as you do in Summer.

To determine if you’ve watered with 2.5 cm of water, here are a couple of suggestions. The easiest options is empty tuna cans, which are around 2.5 cm deep. Place an empty tuna can in the spray of your sprinkler to catch the water, and watch for it to fill up. When it’s full, that area is done! Another suggestion is to take a lawn probe or a screwdriver and stick it into the ground after watering. If the ground is soft for 2.5 cm then you have enough water – if it’s hard, you may need more.

What Height Should I Mow To?

Green, short grass looks great. However, in Kamloops it can be difficult to manage because of problems with the roots. In a short lawn, the roots aren’t shade from the sun, so moisture evaporates out of them faster. Because of less moisture, the roots aren’t as strong or as able to overpower weeds. This means your short lawn is likely to be either a ton of work or it will be full of weeds. Another problem is that shorter grass grows faster, so you’re likely to need to mow more often in order to maintain that length.

Mowing to the length of your finger is the recommendation in Kamloops. We’ve also learned that your lawn receives more nutrients when you leave the clippings on it.

These tips should help you keep most lawns green and lush throughout the summer in Kamloops. We hope they are helpful! If you find you need some help with your lawn or you don’t have time to maintain it yourself, get in touch with our team to learn about our lawn maintenance services. With our team on your team, you won’t have to worry about your lawn this year!