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Summer Lawn Care Tips

Author Icon By Brenda Woods Updated 03/22/2024

If you’re looking for the best lawn care services to keep your lawn healthy and lush during the summer, it’s not impossible. Knowing the basics of lawn care can help you maintain and enjoy a beautiful lawn.

To keep your lawn healthy all year round, This Old House Reviews Team recommends hiring a professional lawn care company like TruGreen. This industry leader offers five different annual plans tailored to different homeowners’ needs. If you prefer a hands-on approach and enjoy taking care of your lawn yourself, Sunday Lawn Care offers a variety of customizable DIY products and plans to help you maintain a healthy and beautiful lawn.


In Early Summer

Fertilize Warm-Season Grass

Fertilizing in the early summer can give your warm-season grass, which grows best at about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, a boost to grow thick and healthy. Fertilizing at the right time can make your grass more heat- and drought-resistant.

However, if you apply too much, you run the risk of burning your lawn. Grass already gets stressed during these months, so maintain caution when applying it. Use a fertilizer formulated specially for summer feedings, and follow the instructions exactly.

If you have cool-season grass, do not fertilize in the summer. The best time to fertilize cool-season grass is in the spring and the fall.

Mow High

Mow the grass high to encourage strong root growth and heat tolerance. Taller grass provides more shade, keeping weeds from germinating and competing with your grass. Start by sharpening your mower blades. Dull blades will tear and shred your grass instead of giving it a clean cut, making the grass more susceptible to losing moisture. Mower blades typically stay sharp through 10 hours of mowing.

Set your blades higher in the summer months, and cut the heights according to grass type. Warm-season grasses should be cut to 2–3 inches tall, while cool-season grasses should be mowed at 3–4 inches. As a general rule, try not to cut more than ⅓ of the grass blade each time you mow.

When you mow, be sure to grasscycle, or leave the clippings on the lawn. They will decompose and help feed your grass.

Treat For Pests

Insects may come out in full force in the summer—just keep in mind that not all of them will hurt your lawn. But if you see bugs like Japanese beetles, June bugs, and European chafers that will munch on your grass, causing wilting and bare patches, you’ll want to act. If left untreated, Japanese beetles will feed on your grass and lay eggs, which will hatch into grubs and start feasting on your grass.

Head this off at the pass by applying a preventative grub control product. Use according to directions.

Control Weeds

If you act fast in the summer, you can kill established weeds before they can bloom and spread seeds. Use a targeted post-emergent herbicide designed to eliminate broadleaf weeds but leave your grass unharmed. Be mindful that even these herbicides may hurt your grass, so use them sparingly. If you’re able to hand-pull the weeds, consider going that route instead.


In Mid-Summer

Water Deeply and Infrequently

Dry, hot weather can deplete your soil moisture. Moisture stress can lead to wilted grass blades, reduced shoot and root growth, and greater susceptibility to pests and weeds.

To combat this, you should water thoroughly about once or twice a week, so long as your region isn’t experiencing any drought conditions that call for water restrictions. The water should reach 4–6 inches deep. If you’re unsure, push a screwdriver into your soil. If you meet a lot of resistance, you need to water more. If it slides in too easily, you need to water less.

QUICK Tip

Feed Grass As Needed

Your lawn may need a mid-summer feeding to promote healthy growth. This is especially true of warm-season grasses like you’ll find in the South. But you don’t want to burn your already heat-stressed grass. Check with your local garden store to see if they have any recommendations on whether you should fertilize, and if so, which type to use.


In Late Summer

In late summer, you should continue the top-notch watering and mowing practices you’ve put into place. That should do the trick, but if you want to get a jumpstart on fall, you may consider aeration and overseeding.

Aerate Your Lawn

Overseed Your Grass If Needed

This isn’t a requirement, but if you want, you can use a core aerator to break up compacted soil. You can rent a core aerator, which pulls up plugs or “cores” of soil from the ground, creating air vents that let your grassroots’ access air, nutrients, and water. This will give your lawn extra hardiness, helping it to withstand stressors.

If your lawn is struggling from bare patches or thinning grass, you can restore it to its former glory with overseeding. By sowing additional seed over existing grass, overseeding will thicken your turf.


Professional Lawn Care

If you’re worried about keeping track of what to do for your lawn during the summer months, hiring a professional lawn care company like TruGreen might be your answer. TruGreen offers five different annual plans, promising to come back every four to fix weeks on an easy, established schedule. That takes all the worry and planning out of it.

TruGreen doesn’t offer mowing or irrigation services, but the lawn care company offers multiple plans that cover fertilization, weed control, pest control, aeration, and even overseeding, depending on where you live.

You can see a breakdown of the three core plans below:

TruGreen Plans and Coverage

Plans

TruHealth℠ Lawn Care Plan

TruComplete℠ Lawn Care Plan

TruSignature℠ Lawn Care Plan

Fertilization

Lime soil amendment

Pre-emergent and targeted weed control

Aeration

Overseeding*

Tree and shrub services

*The TruComplete Lawn Care Plan and TruSignature Lawn Plan only offer overseeding for fescue lawns.

For full-program customers, plans are backed by TruGreen’s Healthy Lawn Guarantee®—if you have persistent problems between scheduled visits, a highly trained TruGreen lawn care specialist will return to your lawn as many times as needed to make sure treatments are effective.

If you’d like a free quote from TruGreen, call 1-866-817-2287, or fill out this simple form.


Our Rating Methodology

The This Old House Reviews Team backs up our lawn recommendations with a detailed rating methodology that we use to objectively score each provider. We review lawn care plans and packages, navigate the provider website and speak with customer service representatives, request quotes, and analyze customer reviews for each provider. We then score the provider against our review standards for plan options, additional benefits and customizability, availability, trustworthiness, and customer service to arrive at a final score out of 100.

To share feedback or ask a question about this article, send a note to our Reviews Team at reviews@thisoldhousereviews.com.