I think the general rule is to not be doing that kind of stuff in the summer because even established grass is struggling with the heat and lack of water. Also, removing plugs from your lawn may stress out those areas, as well. So I probably would not do it. But that being said, if you think you can be really good at watering and the area isn't constantly getting baked all day and you really want to try it out, then it's not out of the question.

 

I doubt it would stress it too much, but also don't know about how much it would spread. You have to keep the area wet until the roots grab hold. I'd probably wait until weather cools a bit. That said, I did do some plugs about a month ago and they seem to be thriving. Not sure how much they've actually spread during the hot times though. I've also put a small amount of 12-12-12 in those spots every couple of weeks.

 

I get to Mid-July / August and I think of my lawn as in survival mode. My whole job is to get it into September in good shape without doing anything drastic. lll drop fungicide; but thats it.

All I do is water and keep the HOC as heigh as I can w/o encouraging disease. Plugs are also basically sod. Do you really want to be doing all that watering in the hottest part of summer to keep the plugs alive. Not to mention what that dailey shallow watering does to encourage disease in the grass around it.

September and august comes fast, the best time for plugs is late fall into winter, you get all that root growth into the next spring w/o even thinking about the plugs.

 

I think with the advice given, I will just wait it out until fall. Sometimes maybe I'm a little too eager to get ahead of the game. I don't want to plant the plugs if they aren't going to spread and I already have enough fungus pressure without the added water needed to keep the plugs alive. This has been the hottest summer in NC so far in recent memory.

 

@Angler Did you end up following through? I am thinking of growing some KBG in pots over winter to fix some mole holes in early spring.

 

I grew some plugs in 2" peat pots and placed them in trays and watered from the bottom like some others on here have done. I planted them about a month later. I had to keep them watered after I planted them. They have done well.

I also grew some KBG in a large plastic container to use as plugs. These have taken much longer to grow roots long enough to use my Pro Plugger and the plugs still want to fall apart. This may be due to the high amount of compost in the soil I used. I have to use the 2" spacer even at 3 months after germination because the roots aren't long enough to pull 4" plugs. I have been using these recently and they have done fine. It just takes longer than the peat pots because they have nothing to hold the roots in place.

I waited to take plugs from my existing lawn because of the heat and stress during the summer. I planted these plugs about 2 weeks ago and they are fine.

Of the methods above, I think the Peat Pots are my favorite because the whole process just seems to be easier for me. Some others on the site prefer other methods. When I pull plugs with my Pro Plugger I prefer to pull them one at a time because it seems to smash the grass when they are pushing on each other as the tube fills.

From the advice I received here, I waited to pull plugs from my existing lawn until the heat subsided and my lawn could heal from the summer stress. Here in North Carolina it can be hot until the middle of September or even longer.

 

Currently trying this as well, have some spots in my reno that didn't take. If anyone else comes across this, 9oz plastic cups are almost perfect size to plant with a pro plugger.