Struggle In Indiana

Lawn-care businesses, most independently owned, are struggling as fewer homeowners decided to water the grass and keep it green this year. Some longer-standing lawn cutters said it's the worst business period in two decades.

In 2009, plentiful rains kept Indiana Lawn Care crews busy at businesses, apartments and other homes once a week.

This year, said owner John Right, there are scores of customers "whom we have not visited for two months."

Companies that diversify will do best in surviving the financial dry spell, said Rob Pritchard of Green & Growing Lawn Care in Fishers. The upside for lawn-care businesses is that the need for reseeding, aeration and other grass-growing tasks should pick up if the roots of the brown, crunchy grass don't recover.

Josh Mosier, operations manager for Mosier Lawns on the Far Westside, said he's also had some customers give up early on grass cutting, which usually continues through November.

"There was a drought period a few years ago that hurt the grass-cutting for a period of time, but this particular drought period has been the longest time frame with literally no rain."

The National Weather Service said precipitation from July 1 to September 9 was 3.41 inches, 5.77 inches less than normal for the period. That dryness, which continued until Saturday, has led more than half of all 92 Indiana counties, including all in the Indianapolis area, to ban outdoor burning.

Paul Whitmore, communications manager with Veolia Water Indianapolis, said consumption has been steady through this year's drought, unlike a hot dry spell in 2007 when sprinklers flowed freely and led to lawn watering restrictions.

More homeowners this year skipped the irrigation and kept the balance due from rising on water bills.

Don Jackson, co-owner of Greenwood's Finest Lawn Services based in Franklin, estimates three of every four lawns that went dormant should come back "if we get the rain we need."

But that fourth lawn, he said, may have to be reseeded.