Time to start prepping lawn for heat

Question: What should I be doing for my lawn in March?

We should be thinking about getting it ready for the heat. Better heat and drought tolerance is achieved with a deeper root system and good nutrition. If you did not aerate your lawn in the fall, now would be a good time to do it.

Watch out for your irrigation lines and sprinkler heads. The lines of the aerator can go down four inches. Your irrigation lines may not be that deep in some places.

Aerating the lawn will allow air to travel deeper into the soil and help the grass develop a deeper root system. Deep rooting is the magic behind good drought tolerance.

Good nutrition is key to good heat tolerance. Use a quality lawn fertilizer at least once during the year. The best time to spend that kind of money is before the heat. Buy a trade-name lawn fertilizer. Scotts comes to mind.

A good lawn fertilizer will have the numbers on the bag in an approximate ratio of 3-1-2 or 4-1-2. Half the nitrogen in the bag should be slow-release nitrogen. Check the label or email me.

Bob Morris is a professor emeritus in horticulture with the University of Nevada and can be reached at extremehort@aol.com. Visit his blog at
xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com. For more gardening advice, check the Home section of Thursday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal.