Top Summer Lawn Care Tips You Need to Know for a Healthier, Greener Lawn

Keeping your lawn healthy during the summer heat requires the right mowing practices, watering schedule, pest prevention, and disease control. Below are my top summer lawn care hacks for every lawn-care pro, landscaper, and DIY homeowner to maintain a thick, green, and resilient lawn all season long.

🌿 Summer Lawn Mowing Tips

Proper mowing is one of the most important steps in maintaining a strong, stress-free lawn during the summer.

Mow High for Healthier Grass

• Keep lawns mowed at 3.0–3.5 inches.
• Taller grass develops deeper roots, retains more moisture, and stays greener during heat stress.
• Change mowing patterns weekly to promote even growth.
• Leave grass clippings on the lawn whenever possible—they provide natural nutrients.

Keep Your Mower Blades Sharp

• A dull blade tears the grass, causing brown tips and making your lawn vulnerable to disease and insects.
• Landscaping pros should sharpen blades weekly.
• DIY homeowners should sharpen blades a few times per season.

Skip Mowing Dormant Grass

• If the lawn goes brown and dormant, avoid mowing until it recovers.
• Landscaping pros: fill skipped-mow weeks with debris cleanup, blowing off turf, or bed maintenance.
• Use monthly or annual contract terms to avoid losing revenue when mowing is paused.

💧 Summer Lawn Watering Tips

Watering correctly is critical during hot, dry weather.

Water Deeply and Infrequently

• Aim for 1–1.5 inches of water per week, including rainfall.
• Water 20–45 minutes per zone, with 30 minutes ideal for most lawns.
• Deep watering encourages a strong, deep root system.

Customize Your Watering Schedule

• Sunnier, drier areas need more water.
• Shaded or naturally moist areas need less.
• Water between 4–10 AM to avoid disease and evaporation.

Adjust Watering for Extreme Heat

• Water every other day in normal summer conditions.
• Increase to 45 minutes per zone during heatwaves.
• In temperatures above 90°F, daily watering may be necessary.
• Depending on where you live, reduce watering to once weekly by late September, and stop watering by mid-October.

Hose & Sprinkler Watering

If using a hose and sprinkler, soak each area for 1 hour, once or twice a week.

🐛 Grub & Insect Prevention Tips

Protecting your lawn from grubs and insects is crucial during the summer months. Here’s how to prevent grubs from damaging or destroying your lawn.

Use Preventive Grub Control

• Apply pre-emergent grub and insect control for best results.
• Use products labeled for grubs, apply at the correct rate, and get it watered in!
• Preventative treatments stop major damage, but minor breakthroughs can still occur.

Check for Grub Damage

If you didn’t apply a preventative:

• Look for brown patches, thinning turf, or increased bird activity.
• Grubs destroy lawns by eating roots—lift brown patches to inspect.
• Most grub damage occurs late summer through early fall.

Organic Grub Control Options

• Beneficial nematodes – Beneficial nematodes are microscopic, soil-dwelling organisms used for natural insect control in turf. They actively seek out and attack pests like grubs, sod webworms, and other soil-dwelling larvae by entering the host and releasing bacteria that kill it from the inside. When applied properly to moist soil, nematodes multiply, continue hunting pests, and provide an environmentally friendly, chemical-free option for reducing insect populations in lawns.
• Milky spore powder – Milky spore powder is an organic treatment used in turf to control Japanese beetle grubs. Once applied to the soil, the spores are ingested by feeding grubs, causing a natural infection that kills them and spreads more spores into the turf. While effective, milky spore works slowly—often taking one to three years to build up in the soil—and is most successful in areas with consistent Japanese beetle activity.

Prevent Grub-Friendly Conditions

• Avoid overwatering
• Aerate compacted soil
• Remove excess thatch

🍃 Summer Lawn Disease Control Tips

Summer is the peak season for lawn diseases like dollar spot, brown patch, leaf spot, and many more.

Stay on a Year-Round Lawn Care Program

• Regular lawn treatments promote a dense, healthy lawn that naturally fights disease.
• Use mulch mowing normally, but bag clippings when active disease is present.

Manage Thatch

• Disease thrives in the thatch layer.
• Aeration or dethatching reduces thatch and improves lawn health.
• Schedule aeration, dethatching, and overseeding in early fall.

Water the Right Way

• Never water at night—disease spreads on wet, overnight grass.
• Avoid light, daily watering (e.g., 15 minutes a day).
• Use deep, infrequent watering like 30 minutes per zone a few times per week or every other day, unless you have clay soil, which does not drain well, reduce watering to approximately 20 minutes per zone.

Use Chemical Disease Controls Carefully

• Treatments last about 4 weeks and often require multiple applications.
• Identify your disease to choose the correct product—not all fungicides treat every disease.
• Do not apply fungicides to dry, stressed turf.
• Preventative treatments during peak summer months provide the best protection.

🌾 Planning for Fall Lawn Seeding

Early fall is the best time to overseed and renovate lawns.

Why Fall Seeding Matters

Fall aeration and overseeding:

• Reduce soil compaction
• Strengthen roots
• Improve color, thickness, and turf quality
• Introduce new, improved grass varieties

How to Seed Correctly

1. Late summer–early fall is the ideal window.
2. Aerate or dethatch to ensure seed-to-soil contact.
3. Apply high-quality grass seed at 5 lbs. per 1,000 sq. ft.
4. Water daily until germination, then gradually reduce frequency.
5. Use a starter fertilizer during or after seeding.
6. Cover bare soil with seed mulch or weed-free straw to retain moisture.

🌟 How to Keep Grass Green in Summer

Strong summer lawn care comes down to mowing at a high height, watering deeply, and staying ahead of pests and diseases. By following our proven and tested summer lawn care tips, you can keep your turf greener, healthier, and more resilient through the hottest months. Prepare now for fall seeding, and check out the best lawn care supplies and resources here at TheLandscapeConnection.com.

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Author: B.Monty

Bryan is a lawn and landscape industry veteran pro with 40+ years of experience. During this time, he built expertise and certifications in arbor care, deer repellents, drainage systems, fencing, firewood, hardscaping, landscape design, construction, installation, landscape lighting, lawn care, lawn installation, renovations, repairs, lawn mowing, landscape maintenance, irrigation, masonry, mosquito, tick control, PHC, snow removal, and more... He is the creator of The Landscape Connection and can be reached at bryan@thelandscapeconnection.com.