Beat the heat for your potted plants. Hard surfaces such as the patio, deck, or steps absorb a lot of solar energy (especially dark or brick surfaces), which is radiated back with a vengeance and can literally bake your plants. Watering helps, but you may also have to temporarily move pots to the edges or to somewhat shadier settings.
High-maintenance (Bluegrass) lawns need an early June feeding of a balanced fertilizer at the rate of one-half pound of nitrogen per 1000 square feet, then avoid fertilizing in July. Do not fertilize shady, low-maintenance lawns until fall.
Low-maintenance lawns can generally rely on the water nature provides. High maintenance lawns will need more. If nature doesn’t provide adequate rainfall – at least an inch per week – you will need to water. The grass will make best use of the water you provide if you give it a soaking to encourage strong, deep roots that will be better able to gather food and water. During a drought, a healthy low-maintenance lawn will go dormant and as long as there isn’t any traffic on it while dormant, it will survive until moisture returns. High maintenance lawns (and low-maintenance lawns with heavy traffic) will be damaged by inadequate water.
During June and July, several patch diseases can cause lawn problems. Keeping your lawn healthy and mowed at the proper height will help avoid these problems.
Now is the very best time to control white grub larvae in lawns. A single application of Bayer Advanced™ Season-Long Grub Control Granules in June through mid-August will control all the white grubs eating your lawn for the rest of the year. It contains Merit® insecticide, the number 1 product used by professionals to control grubs. Also, if your lawn is plagued by insects that destroy lawns from the roots, consider using Bayer Advanced™ Complete Insect Killer For Soil & Turf Concentrate – a blend of two insecticides to control all your grub problems (using Merit insecticide) and all your surface insect problems, such as armyworms and sod webworms.