How to Prevent Dollar Spot and Leaf Spot Disease on Your Summer Lawn
While summer brings on lots of fun with everything from family vacations and swimming to cookouts and outdoor adventures, it also brings on a lot of problems for your lawn. With the hot, wet weather of summer, lawn diseases are provided with the perfect breeding ground, many of which are very destructive and need to be treated carefully to keep them from returning.
Dollar Spot Lawn Disease: A Summer Threat to Your Lawn’s Health
Dollar spot lawn disease is fungal infection named after the 1-2 inch wide small, yellowish dots it leaves on your lawn. Depending on the type of grass the circles can be larger, and if there is not a treatment plan in place to get rid of and prevent the circles, they will grow larger and merge making a larger area of yellow spots.
This type of lawn disease is common in the summer, especially during summers where the humidity is high at night. You can manage dollar spot before it begins by using a consistent lawn care plan that includes treatments such as fall aeration to remove thatch and increase airflow to your lawn as well as fertilization. If you currently have a dollar spot infection on your lawn, you can try to treat the issue with fungicide, but it is best to contact a Pittsburgh lawn care company to resolve the issue and prevent it from reoccurring.
Leaf Spot: Another Common Summer Lawn Disease
Leaf spot is another fungal infection that causes spots on your lawn. Leaf spot causes spots of brown grass to form on your turf. As the infection progress, these brown spots will grow larger on the grass blades, creating a purplish-colored oval shape.
During the winter season, leaf spot spores can live on your grass and become active as the weather warms up. Leaf spot is attracted to moisture, growing in the dew on your lawn or in the excessive moisture caused by high humidity at night or overwatering.
If leaf spot is not treated quickly and effectively, the infection will continue to progress, causing even more damage to the grass. Many times, homeowners see the brown spots during the summer and assume they need to water their lawn more often, but additional irrigation will only make leaf spot worse.
Leaf spot can be treated with a fungicide like dollar spot, but the most effective way to avoid these lawn diseases to invest in a comprehensive lawn care program that consists of weed and insect control as well as fertilizer. With a dedicated lawn care program, your lawn will receive the nutrients and treatments it needs to remain healthy and fungus-free.
With Superior Lawn Care’s expertise in treating lawn diseases, and with our Five Application Lawn Care program, we can keep your lawn healthy and green all year round! We serve southwestern Pennsylvania, including Cranberry, North Huntingdon, Murrysville, Upper St. Clair, Pittsburgh, New Stanton, Indiana, and Belle Vernon. Call or contact us today to learn more!