WEST CHESTER TWP — After several weeks of dry weather, homeowners throughout the Tristate are fighting the Battle of the Browns.

        Their nemesis is ugly, brown grass.

Linville Ruckel, who prides himself on a green lawn, looks over a fence at cracks in a neighbor's property in West Chester (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        “My grass is usually greener than anybody's around here. But not this year,” said Linville Ruckel as he looked at the expanse of brown lawn in front of his West Chester Township home.

        The heavy rains of spring left Greater Cincinnati lawns lush and green. But the dry summer has turned them parched.

        The scattered showers and thunderstorms that are predicted through the weekend won't turn the grass green again, lawn-care experts say.

        “It would take at least an inch of rain a week for about a month to make a big difference,” said Kevin Laughlin, sales manager of Scotts Lawn Service in West Chester Township. “A one-inch rainfall this weekend won't help much.”

        The lack of water and hot, humid conditions cause grass, whose blades are 80 percent water, to dehydrate and turn brown. Those conditions also promote brown-patch disease, a fungus that creates circular brown patches.

        The primary remedy for brown grass is regular watering.

        Using a sprinkler for a half-hour in the morning or late afternoon two or three days a week should keep the grass healthy and green, experts say.

        For the first time this summer, Eileen Niehaus, 63, of Madeira, dragged her hose and sprinkler onto her front lawn this week. “It's starting to look pretty bad,” Mrs. Niehaus said. “So I thought I better do something.”

        But many people aren't watering. Their reasons include a lack of time, a desire to conserve water and/or save money, and an abiding faith that the rain eventually will come.

        Katherine McFarland, of Hyde Park, has seen enough brown lawns during her 85 years that they don't bother her any more.

        “If you just wait long enough, the green grass all comes back,” she said. “Besides, I'm too old to fiddle with all that sprinkling.”

        Even though Gary and Tina Davis, haven't watered their grass, the front lawn of their Madisonville home has remained green. But Mr. Davis, 62, admitted that's because it has a lot of weeds, whose waxy coating protects them from drought-like conditions.

        “They're so sturdy, nothing bothers them,” he said.

        Pat Bowling, 62, of West Chester Township, isn't watering her lawn, partly because of her concerns about conserving water. Her one-acre lot would require quite a bit.

        Lawn-care experts say that the worst time to water is in the evening when wet grass is more vulnerable to fungus diseases. The best time is in the morning, and the second best time is late afternoon. “Watering grass in the evening is like leaving clothes in a washing machine overnight,” Mr. Laughlin said.

        And a little watering can be more harmful to grass than no watering at all, the experts say.

        “If you water just a tiny bit, you're just going to burn out your grass,” said Dave Beckett, president of Beckett Lawn Care & Landscape in Erlanger, Ky.

        Most of the grass won't die even if people don't water it, Mr. Laughlin said.

        “Usually, brown grass will bounce back in the fall ,” he said.

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