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lawn care

News

The Red Thread fungus seriously disfigures lawns in certain conditions; thunderstorms, heavy rain and warm weather have combined to raise humidity levels making this much more likely than normal.

Current conditions are an ideal environment for fungus to grow and damage the leaves of your lawn. The fungus harvests the chlorophyll (green pigment) from the grass, leaving it looking like straw.
This year many lawns have higher than normal levels of thatch following last year’s drought. Spring in East Anglia was cold and dry meaning grass did not have much if any time to renew and strengthen before the conditions favourable to `Red Thread` arrived.

Was extremely dry and in the main very cold. We had the mini heatwave in late April over Easter, but apart from that temperatures were well below average.

Cold and dry weather is not a helpful start to the growing season for any plant. Many tree species were notably late to leaf, and grass of course was slow to get into its growth stride. This was particularly frustrating for anybody wanting to repair patches of damage left over from last years extended heatwave and drought.

Following the dry and warm Autumn, we have had a dry winter. Because the roots of grass are seldom deeper than 3” this is not an immediate threat to grass condition. However, we have taken core samples as recently as January 2019 and found the soil to be very compacted and bone dry just a few inches under some lawns.