William Moss: Mowing is the main task of summer to keep your lawn beautiful, but not the only one. There are a few more things you can do to keep your lawn lush through the heat. Hi! I am William Moss; Master Gardener with the National Gardening Association. Today, we're at the Historic Oatlands here in Leesburg, Virginia and we're going to talk about ways to get that picture book lawn. The first is proper watering. You want to water deeply, but infrequently. A lot of people go out everyday with the sprinkler for 15 minutes.

That is not what you want to do. Instead, you want to water 45 minutes to an hour every 3 to 4 days. That way, the water soaks down deeply to that 6 inch, and below level which lets the roots grow 6 inches and deeper which makes the turf for more drought tolerant. So things that can help you with your watering are to use like a notebook, just a kind of journal, when you have a heavy rainstorm, also a rain gauge would tell you about how much rain has fallen, because what you're trying to do once again is water deeply, but infrequently. So if you just had a lot of rain yesterday, you may not need to water today.

Second is fertilization, and when I fertilize especially in the summer, I like to use an organic top dressing. They do not burn the grass. So that means, if you get out there and spread it down, you don't have to worry about it being too hot or being so dry that the fertilizer burns out the grass. Not only will they help fertilize the roots of the plant, they'll also help build you a nice healthy organic soil with all the beneficial communities of organisms that are in it to keep your lawn naturally drought tolerant and lush again.

Then finally, there is spot seeding. Well, you're going to have bad patches from time to time. The best way to handle that is simply to fluff up the soil using the bull rake rakes or some type of cultivator, and then you work the grass seed into that and water it in overtime. So filling the bad patches, proper fertilization with a non-burning top dressing and also proper watering will keep your lawn beautiful all throughout summer. Get Out and Grow!