Virginia Green Grow Beyond Blog

With summer temperatures soaring across Virginia, many of us are enjoying the sunshine and spending more time outdoors. Unfortunately, these same conditions create a haven for mosquitoes. These unwelcome guests can turn your backyard cookout or evening relaxation into a swatting frenzy.

Fireblight is a destructive, highly infectious, widespread disease caused by the bacterium (Erwinia amylovora.) It is found on apples, pears and other members of the rose family which includes trees and shrubs in orchards, nurseries and landscape plantings. It is very difficult to control. Virginia Green recommends the cultural practices below.

With temperatures rising earlier than usual this year, lawn diseases are making an unexpected early appearance. These diseases thrive in hot, humid, and moist conditions, particularly during nights when temperatures stay in the low-to-mid 70s. Two common culprits, brown patch (Rhizoctonia) and dollar spot (Clarireedia), are especially active under these conditions.

It wouldn’t be spring if we didn’t announce our April Lawn of the Month winners. With over 110 submissions this month, it was one of the hardest decisions to choose winners as every single home and lawn submitted blew our minds with beauty! Remember, each month is another opportunity to submit your home as a potential winner and to show off its beauty. A $75 credit towards a future application doesn’t hurt either .

The heat is on and my lawn is showing it – yours probably is too. Here in Central Virginia, we live in a transition zone, which means it gets really cold in the winter and extremely hot in the summer, which can (and usually does) equate to stressed turf. Although we can’t really do anything about Virginia weather, there are some steps we can take to help our grass handle the heat.

The three tips below should help your lawn survive the hot weather.