Our lawn went the colour of a paper bag last summer and I panicked. Then I read a short piece on Yard Fixes that basically said wait, and that one word turned out to be the best gardening advice I got all year.

Waiting is the hard part. Grass that looks dead in August is usually just dormant. I tugged on a few patches, felt that the crowns were still firm, and left the whole thing alone until the rain came back. Half of it greened up on its own.

The rest needed help. I raked out the properly dead stuff with a spring rake, hard enough to scratch the surface and drag up the thatch underneath. Ugly work. My shoulders ached for days. But bare soil is what seed needs, and the raking gave it that.

Then I reseeded the bald patches, sifted a little soil over the top, and pressed it down with the back of the rake. No fancy kit involved. Then I watered, early in the morning before work, because watering at noon in full sun wastes most of it and watering at night leaves the seed cold and damp until dawn.

Mowing was the other lesson. I had been scalping it every week and calling that tidy. Now I cut high and leave the grass longer than feels right. It shades its own roots and rides out a dry spell far better. Looks a bit shaggy in June. Fine by me.

By autumn the lawn was patchy but alive, which is all I was after.