It’s been horrendously hot here. Lots of wilting plants when we aren’t careful enough about watering. Most obvious to others, of course, is the lawn.

My own standards for the lawn are pretty low. I don’t need a golf course green lawn. I just need a place my kids can play.

One tip for this I heard on my local news a while back was to simply water less often, but water more deeply. Deeper waterings help the lawn for longer, and can use less water overall. I believe he said something like an inch of water a week would keep an adequately healthy lawn. I don’t know that I reach that much watering even, but I might. I’ve never put a gauge out to be sure.

We rent, and the landlord has a yard service that does what I consider to be a pretty poor job of lawn care. In other words, weeds are taking over, but all they do is cut the lawn. On the plus side, I guess that makes the care more or less organic. The minus is of course that some of the weeds aren’t exactly as good as grass for kids to play on. Another minus would be that they haul the clippings away.

If you have more control over how your yard is cared for, sites such as SafeLawns.org can be a huge help. Not everyone will like all the advice, such as allowing clover to grow, but many of their tips just make sense.

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