We have been very fortunate this year, with the cool temperatures. Now that the summer heat has decided to show up, you need to keep an eye out for the lawn diseases that can attack your grass. Hopefully you have already put down a preventive lawn disease control application. If not, you may want to consider doing it immediately. Damage can happen overnight. Many customers have come into the garden center this week swearing their brown lawns were caused by grubs. Brown lawns can be caused by several things. It could be lack of water, insects, or fungus. Any lawn, no matter how lush and green, can come under attack by lawn fungus. The scorching humid heat that we are experiencing now is the perfect condition for fungus to attack your lawn.

The most important and best line of defense in preventing your lawn from developing some sort of disease is proper care. Proper mowing, fertilizing, and watering are absolutely necessary in keeping these potential problems at bay–and if even one is not done properly, your lawn can become susceptible to disease.

There are many diseases that can take hold of the grass, but the most common on Long Island are dollar spot, brown patch, and red thread. Dollar spot can occur on almost any type of grass, it looks like small brown dead patches of grass that can range in size of a golf ball up to a basketball. It will multiply over the course of weeks and can overtake and kill your lawn. Brown patch is another common disease that can turn your green lawn brown and dead almost overnight. It differs from dollar spot in that the brown patches are always much larger and usually the damage done is much quicker. Red thread usually attacks your lawn in cool damp weather. It is identified by pinkish red grass blades that have fine threads at the tips.

Proper identification of lawn problems is the key to making sure you use the correct remedy. We would prefer you take a 12 inch by 12 inch sample of grass out of your lawn and bring it in to us so we can identify your problem. If you have one of these diseases, The Dees’ Nursery recommends Bonide Infuse Turf Fungicide or Scotts Lawn Fungicide. Both are broad spectrum systemic fungicides that get into the grass plant which will kill and prevent many turf diseases.

Even though the heat is here and you may already be experiencing a lawn disease, there is still time to correct the problem and get your lawn back to good health. Yes, even my lawn (which should be the picture on the Scott’s Turf Builder bag) got nailed by some dollar spot this week. Even lawn care superstars like me can get into trouble sometimes. I fixed it–you should too.