COLUMBUS, Ohio —  Up until this week, the state was experiencing extreme drought conditions, affecting farmers’ crops, water supplies and more. The drought has also been affecting the grass.

What You Need To Know

  • The Buckeye State was experiencing drought conditions, affecting grass

  • OSU Agriculture expert says the best thing you can do is wait for rain, then seed or perform lawn care maintenance

  • The soil is lacking moisture, delaying the usual fall seeding timeline 

“We may have to postpone a lot of those tasks as there just isn’t enough soil moisture,” said Mike Hogan, Extension Educator of Agriculture Natural Resources at OSU.

Hogan said normally September and early October are the best months of the year to reseed and conduct lawn maintenance tasks.

 But this year is looking different because of the drought conditions.

But despite what you might think, Hogan said the brown grass is not dead and the best thing you can do is nothing. 

“So the rule of thumb for this month and into October and probably most of the fall unless we get adequate soil moisture which would mean that we have a nice rain maybe every other day for a couple of weeks, is to stay off of the lawn and delay most lawn maintenance activities,” said Hogan.

But postponing lawn maintenance can be concerning, especially for new homeowners like Sammy Gay. 

“When I moved in here, I have a corner lot so I have a little bit more space as far as grass goes than my neighbors so right when I moved in I was a little bit overwhelmed about the grass situation,” Gay said.

It’s something she never said she worried about before, but being a homeowner now, she wants to take good care of her property. 

“I see so many of my neighbors they have still such a pretty green color to their yard and mine definitely does not look like that, so last week I wasn’t really seeing an end to this drought I was thinking that ‘You know I need to do something myself,’ I didn’t know the next time it was gonna rain so I actually went on amazon and purchased a little sprinkler,” Gay said.

But Hogan advises homeowners like Gay not to fret, and sit back and let the rain we’re getting this weekend do the work for you.

“There’s really no reason to go ahead and get out the lawn sprinkler and try to bring that back now if you haven’t been providing irrigation all along throughout the summer,” Hogan said.

He said the best thing to do is to wait and see what happens once spring comes, and then seed.