So Why Is My Grass Still Brown?

Until July 22 of this year our area was under a major heat wave. The week prior to that date was especially brutal with daytime highs averaging in the upper 90's with the 20th and 21st both topping 100 degrees. The heat index hovered between 105 and 110. We were headed to the hottest, driest July on record.

It was so hot and dry my heat-loving tomato plants were wilting and the normally omnipresent mosquitoes were nowhere to be found. We couldn't even get relief in our pool (see previous post). It was as warm as bathwater.

On the plus side, I hadn't needed to cut the grass in ten days. Usually, I have to cut it twice a week just to keep up.

 Then came July 22 and .53 inches of rain, a welcome relief to be sure. That was followed by thunderstorms bringing 1.5 inches the next day and 2.99 inches the day after that. That was just in my rain gauge--yeah, I'm a weather geek--many places got more and had to deal with serious flooding. On Tuesday evening I fired up the lawn mower just to even up the few blades of green grass that were growing with all the brown ones that weren't.

Last night and into this morning we got another round of storms that dropped .9 inches and counting. Some places up toward Wisconsin got close to ten times that. So instead of this being the driest July on record, now we've set a record for the wettest July ever. There's rain predicted for the next two days, too.

So why is my grass still brown?