Summer Landscape & Turf Care: Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset
- Brendan Boyle
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
By Donna Moramarco,
Horticulturalist
Pinelawn Memorial Park
"It's not easy being green." Kermit the Frog may have been talking about life, but anyone responsible for maintaining cemetery grounds knows the phrase couldn't be more fitting during the summer months.
Heat, drying winds, inconsistent rainfall, insect and disease pressure, equipment demands, and labor shortages all test even the best-maintained properties. For today's cemetery professionals, the challenge is balancing beautiful, well-maintained grounds with water conservation, employee productivity, public safety, and budget realities.
A proactive approach can help protect your landscape investment while maintaining the peaceful, dignified environment families expect. Here are a few best management practices to help your grounds perform through the heat of summer.
Irrigation: Every Drop Matters
Water management is one of the most important—and costly—aspects of summer grounds maintenance.
• Water deeply and less frequently to encourage deeper root systems and improve drought tolerance.
• Irrigate during the early morning hours (typically 4:00–9:00 a.m.) to minimize evaporation and maximize efficiency.
• Inspect irrigation systems weekly for leaks, clogged nozzles, broken sprinkler heads, and poor coverage.
• Correct drainage problems and runoff to prevent wasted water and stressed turf. • Utilize smart controllers, rain sensors, and soil moisture meters whenever possible to improve irrigation efficiency.
• Adjust watering schedules based on rainfall, soil moisture, and local water restrictions. Irrigation should be based on precipitation rates—not simply the timer.
• Install drip irrigation in landscape beds, memorial gardens, and planter areas where targeted watering is most effective.
• Newly planted trees and shrubs require more frequent monitoring and irrigation than established plantings.
Protecting Your Crew During Extreme Heat
Discuss scheduling work during cooler periods, supervisors being able to recognize early signs of heat related illness, adjusting work assignment. Questions: How is your cemetery protecting crews on hot days? Have you adjusted schedules, equipment or work assignments based on scheduled forecasts?
What's your biggest irrigation challenge this summer? Are you stretching every gallon, dealing with watering restrictions, or finally trying a new technology that's paying off? If you've discovered a trick that saves water without sacrificing turf quality, don't keep it to yourself—we'd love to hear about it.
Summer Landscape & Turf Care: Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset
Stay Ahead of Weeds
Consistent monitoring saves time and reduces long-term maintenance costs.
• Scout turf and landscape beds weekly for weed activity.
• Properly identify weed species before selecting a control strategy.
• Remove or treat weeds before they produce seed.
• Spot-treat problem areas whenever practical instead of making blanket herbicide applications.
• Maintain dense, healthy turf to naturally suppress weed establishment. Are weeds winning the battle—or are you? Every season seems to bring a new challenge. Have you found a strategy that's helping you stay ahead of problem weeds? Share what's worked (and even what hasn't). Someone else may be facing the exact same issue.
Minimize Turf Stress
Healthy turf is better equipped to withstand summer heat and recover from environmental stress.
• Raise mowing heights during periods of high temperatures.
• Keep mower blades sharp to reduce turf injury.
• Never remove more than one-third of the grass blade during a single mowing.
• Limit fertilizer applications during extreme heat unless using slow-release products.
• Monitor for drought stress, localized dry spots, and signs of disease before damage becomes widespread.
What's your turf telling you this summer? Have you changed mowing heights, adjusted irrigation, or backed off fertilizer to help your turf survive the heat? Which changes have made the biggest difference? Let's compare notes.
Protect Trees and Landscape Plantings
Trees and ornamentals represent long-term investments that deserve regular attention throughout the growing season.
• Prune only dead, damaged, or hazardous limbs during summer.
• Avoid fertilizing trees and shrubs during periods of heat stress.
• When replacing plant material, consider drought-tolerant, lower-maintenance species that reduce long term water and labor requirements.
• Routinely inspect landscapes for heat stress, insect activity, disease, storm damage, and declining plant health.
• Maintain a two-inch layer of mulch to conserve moisture and moderate soil temperatures, but keep mulch away from trunks and plant crowns. And remember—no volcano mulching!
Which plants are thriving...and which ones are waving the white flag?
Have you found tree or shrub species that seem to laugh at the heat? Or have you learned a lesson about what not to plant? Your experience could help someone else make a better decision next season.
DROUGHT STRESS ON HYDRANGEA
Summer Landscape & Turf Care: Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset
Summer has a way of testing every grounds crew. Some years it's relentless heat. Other years it's too much rain, stubborn weeds, irrigation challenges, or simply finding enough hours in the day to get everything done. While best management practices provide a solid roadmap, some of the best ideas come from the people doing the work every day.
Balancing Grounds Maintenance with Funerals and Visitation
Families judge the condition of the cemetery by the entrances and areas immediately around the gravesites being visited. What do you do to maintain entranceways? Do you treat the older sections of the cemetery differently than those more recently developed? How does your team balance getting work done around services and visitation?
Let's keep the conversation going. What's been your biggest summer challenge this year? Have you discovered a practice, product, or adjustment that's made a real difference? Maybe you've found a better way to manage irrigation, reduce turf stress, or keep your crew productive during extreme heat. Or perhaps you're still searching for answers. Either way, your experiences can help someone else facing the same challenges.
We'd love to hear what's working at your cemetery. Share your successes, your lessons learned, and even the obstacles you're still trying to overcome. Together, we can learn from one another and continue raising the standard of cemetery grounds management.
Stay Informed: Resources for a Successful Season
No one has to tackle summer alone. Staying connected to trusted resources and educational opportunities can help you anticipate problems before they become costly repairs and give you fresh ideas to bring back to your cemetery.
Weather Updates
Upcoming Educational Opportunities
Turf Management Walk & Talk at Mount Pleasant Cemetery Join fellow cemetery professionals, grounds managers, and industry suppliers for an informative field program featuring practical turf management strategies, seasonal best practices, and the opportunity to exchange ideas with colleagues facing the same summer challenges.
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