Is this front lawn pretty much toast now?

[NewspaperTaxis]

I cut the front lawn a bit too close and with the heatwave, it now looks like this I did water it with a watering can a bit morning and evening expecting it to turn green over the course of a week but it hasn't. Maybe it will in the next week as rain is expected. I haven't put the sprinkler on it for weeks/months now because of the drought and there is of course now a hosepipe ban.

Shall I write this part of the lawn off a bit? The picture perhaps makes it look worse than it is, but it's still quite bad. As you can see, some parts have come through as normal green grass. Can I pimp it by putting top soil and fast-growing grass seed on it? Or is that unnecessary if it will turn verdant within a fortnight?

As soon as we get some decent rain it'll grow back.

My lawn in the subtropics does this every summer and is fine once the rains come. Grass is surprisingly tough.

We are in London and our lawn looked like straw. We had 2 nights of rain and it is already starting to grow back. I would wait and see what the rain next week does and wouldn't be surprised if it starts to look better then.

It will be fine once it rains. Grass is incredibly resilient

advice from a former greenkeeper. Leave it, it’ll sort itself out. Think of it as a tree dropping its leaves in autumn whilst the rest of the tree is alive but dormant.

grassleaves go brown under heat/drought stress. The roots are alive but dormant

My take is different, I’d have said it wasn’t a good lawn to start with and that was mainly moss and the moss has died. It will come back but I think it’s the moss that’s died and not the grass.

Give it time, and don't water it as you'll encourage shallow roots which will make it less resilient.

Oh and don’t use a watering can, a light sprinkling of water is more harmful than no water. Causes the grass to waste the energy it is trying to conserve sending roots to go up to,the water also leaving them vulnerable to scorching and drying. But there isn’t enough water to survive on.

Jinx @Yarnasaurus

im a slow typist

Many, many thanks everyone for these prompt responses, especially about using the watering can on it. ie. not to do so. But does that mean the hose pipe is also a bit daft unless it's left on for a good hour or so (I know there's a ban now so I won't be doing this anyway, just interested)? As in small doses - say quarter of an hour - it wouldn't be much different to a watering can on this kind of grass.

It really is completely pointless to water anything but a newly seeded or newly turfed lawn.