How to Deal with a Flooded Lawn

Flooding and standing water on a lawn create havoc and destruction, and it often takes extensive lawn care to repair flood damage. The intense weather patterns around the United States have recently showcased some disturbing tendencies toward flooding. It’s vital for home owners in rainy areas to know what to do if they get a flooded lawn.

Letting the Lawn Rest

Although it might be tempting to go out onto the lawn when it’s still freshly drained to try and try things off with a blower of some kind, it’s best to let the lawn rest and dry for a short time. Wet grass is vulnerable grass, and it’s easy to destroy the lawn’s fragile grass blades with activity too soon after flooding. Allowing a lawn to rest and dry safely means keeping everyone off the lawn while it drains and dries. This means parents, kids, and pets each need to stay away from the lawn.

Removing Excess Dirt

It’s common for a recently dried lawn to have a layer of sediment on it (or silt as it’s commonly called in the lawn care industry). Removing the dirt or silt is important because the grass might suffocate under the weight of the dirt. Sometimes the debris and dirt can be removed with a hearty raking while other heavy coverings might kill the lawn completely and require new sod. This project might be difficult for an individual home owner to accomplish. Looking up the number of a local professional lawn care company will offer a lot of time saved in the lawn restoration.

Aerating the Lawn

After the winter,  it’s common to aerate the lawn and ensure that the soil isn’t too packed down that it crushes grass growth. A similar project might be necessary after a flooded lawn. The soil around the roots of the grass can be loosened with an aerator. This process might need to happen more than once to ensure that the soil offers suitable breathing room for grass roots to grow.

Feeding the Lawn

Water may wash away the important topsoil where nutrients and fertilizer rest. Replacing the healthy elements of the soil with new fertilizer is a good idea to keep the lawn healthy as it recovers. Feeding the lawn will also shorten the time it takes the lawn to grow back and recover from the flooding. If a lawn has any more than a few inches of water during the flooding, it’s likely that most of the nutrients from the soil will have been washed away during the drying out of the yard.

Having Patience with Lawn Care

Just like any other lawn project, recovering from a flooded lawn takes time and patience of the home owner. Trying to hurry the process of returning the lawn to a healthy state will only make it more difficult to get everything growing properly. Full lawn recovery may take months after a severe flood.

For help with lawn recovery, reach out to us here at LawnCare.net. Our network of experts can provide the necessary services and lawn care plans to restore your lawn to its former glory.