3 Things NOT To Do When Your Lawn Is STRESSED!! 

It looks like the Hydretain application a month ago did not prevent the fescue from going dormant. It may reduce the water needed but with no irrigation or rain it does not keep the grass from dormancy.

I have never understood the people who want or try to have a great yard but who don't have irrigation and or are not watering religiously due to cost.....then why bother???

EXCELLENT video! Where are you located? What zone? Just wondering about your weather there.

It's above 90s this whole week, nights only get down to 65-70. I sprayed Bioadvanced root moisturizer Friday. Sprayed baby shampoo & watered for like 30 minutes, about .5 inches. Will see how lawn survives at end of week.

I water just enough to keep my wife , the flowers , the Rabbits & the Robins happy. When wife happy , household happy . Hopefully my next house has a well .

Off the cuff information. How often do you water? How much are you watering at one time (1/2", 1")? If you're like me you get a monthly bill showing the amount of cubic feet of water you used, do you have that amount? I know you depend a lot on the seasonal rains to help, just curious as I don't get a lot of rain here and I have KBG and costs an arm & a leg for water.

Thanks for another great experiment. I'm not fond of spot watering but I do it anyways. I never experimented with it the way you did so I'm glad to see your results.

Them weed are coming up most definitely. If you did a pre emergent the barrier is broken and the exposure to sun may speed up the germination process. I have a small spot that i didn't wat to rake up in fear of weeds coming in.

I like how recently in Allen Haynes video he showed the lawns around his neighborhood. It really is hard with the heat and no rain. I cringe every time I see the forecast in the '90s for a week. That's what it's been here in Western PA . I'd like to see what Pete's test plot looks like right now with his non-irrigated fescue

Have you ever considered warm season grass? A whole new learning experience. May hold up better in the warming climate

I’m in the Triangle as well and I’m starting to think if it keeps on like this all summer I should switch to zoysia in the backyard.

Mr Ferguson... I will be happy to share with you a "possible" solution to this issue that I am presently working with/on right now in private sometime if you are interested. I like yourself have been battling this issue since the earlier days of GCI's turf program.

Oh!!! I ran my lawn sweeper behind the rider & it literally pulled out / up thatch , yellow etc....may become a new technique....Ill let you know how it works out

Do you fertilize before or after you mow the lawn??

Albino Fescue Incoming lol

Get ready for the diseases! Your lawn going in and out of dormancy like that its definitely coming. Super stressed out and the disease will finish it off unfortunately. At this point, you might as well just leave it alone and let it go full dormancy. Just my opinion Mr. F.

I water my lawn every morning (6am) once a day for 10mins or less. I got the most healthy lawn in the block and its dark green. Only used milorganite 1 week before memorial day.

So hydratain is useless?

In NC as well and it’s bad. I have irrigation but there’s spots that don’t get watered well and they’re showing major signs of heat stress. Only thing you can do is hand water those spots and irrigate longer or more frequently(measuring would be best). I’ll be hand watering my stress spots all summer😢.

On that side bank you say might have a dirt problem, maybe when the time is right again, start adding some good organic material. Compost, peat, etc. Maybe hammer it with some Humic or other bio stims.

Seeing what your yard looks like now and what it used to look like. And this is all because of heat and water. Thanks no reason for me to panic. Hasn't gotten like that yet, but at least I know.👍🏽👍🏽

I battles fungus and now i have this rust looking coat over my lawn idk what it is if its the fungus or what ....im at war over here! Lol

Amen Mr Ferguson I totally agree with you we need the Lord! Like your grass need water very well sAid! 👏

@MrFerguson, the part right behind your house, didn't you put a different seed? & it's newer, so not as established.

Hats off to you for doing this experiment. My area hasn't had rain in a couple of weeks I've been running 2 to 3 30 min irrigation cycles per week and still have some heat stress. I cant wait to see the water bill. I need to get some measuring cups to put out in the lawn

I water each zone 40 minutes once a week… I also spoon feed it water 8 minutes each zone daily during this heat and drought

Great video I enjoy see long updates on your lawn as I live a few hours south of you with a lot of the same conditions. The forecast looks brutal no rain for at least 10 more days!

this video is so relatable to my lawn. thank you for this video.

I would be so scared those hot spots would catch fire.

So my wife, who watches this channel, asks me how much water costs. Bear in mind, we don't even have a lawn. Now she's telling me Jeremy Sisto looks like Mr. Ferguson. She needs to get a job.

My plumber lowered the water pressure to the house (including the sprinklers). Now that the temps going up I began increasing the length in time of the watering. But I getting stressed out grass - which I would say due to the sprinklers not putting out a longer range (feet) due to the lower pressure. I thought maybe stressed grass due to compaction (we got a lot of rain in the Winter). But late yesterday afternoon I hand watered the stressed areas. Before I saw your video. Those areas looking slightly better. But I think I need to aerate and spray some humic acid.

Mine is the exact same, same weather being only a few hours away!!...Sprayed fungicide hose end this am & just continued spraying after the bio advanced was gon!!! SMH

Thank you Mr Ferg for the confidence. Do you contribute this to salts in the Nitrogen or any salts of the MOP in potassium? A section of my lawn looks the same. I can’t wait for the water to come from Mother Nature.

I skipped through the video....did you go over the part you put hydretain on? How is that holding up?

Can I put down some fungicide in weather like this Mr. Ferguson?

AMEN

Mr. Ferg🙏🏾 My lawn is dormant. Will it be okay to use a pitch folk to polj ssome holes in it?

ouch!

Wow does it actually look as bad in person as it does on camera.... Be really cool to see if it bounces back.

Why haven't you invested in irrigation?