Texas Lawn Care: A Basic Outline For Lawns In Texas
Lawn grass types
Most lawns in Texas are either Bermuda grass or Saint Augustine, with a small smattering of centipede, Zoysia, and, unfortunately, a lot of Bahia-grass.
Lawn management practices
Mowing
Mowing is the most important factor in lawn care. If all other things are equal, the lawn that is mowed more frequently will be superior. See: Mowing Your Texas Lawn
Frequency
Frequent mowing reduces weed competition by chopping the heads off before they have a chance to go to seed and reproduce. Frequent mowing encourages stolons to grow laterally, making the lawn tighter and filling in bare spots. Frequent mowing produces smaller clippings which return up to 60% of the available nitrogen back into the soil, and provides organic matter for improved soil quality.
Height
Specific height recommendations depend on the type of grass, soil fertility, available water, and the time of the year.
Mowing equipment types
It would be wonderful if everyone had a professional quality fairway mower, but the fact is that they are expensive, and sometimes difficult to maintain. If you have a large yard with few obstacles, the larger the mower the better. If you have a smaller area with lots of hills and valleys, twists and turns, something smaller and lighter is in order. Large mowers in small spaces with lots of turns and slopes produce a problem that has become so common as to have it’s own moniker: BMB, or Big Mower Blight. The best mower for your lawn will be the one that performs the best, with the least impact on the turf.
Clippings and cuttings
Cuttings and clippings are almost always best handled by leaving them on the ground. It increases soil nutrients and organic matter, and reduces waste problems. Clippings should be kept short for faster degradation, this usually means frequent mowing works best.
Irrigating your Texas lawn
It never ceases to amaze me that there are people in the world who think that an irrigation system is a set it and forget it proposition. In most cases, someone has told them that you just set it up for 10 minutes, or 20 minutes or 30 minutes a day, and everything will be fine. This is almost never true!
Areas that are flat, with little surface drainage require different watering than areas with a gentle, or a steep slope. Areas with a lot of hills and steep slopes will require more frequent, shorter periods of watering than other parts of the lawn.
Setting up an irrigation schedule
Setting up a schedule requires knowing how much irrigation your lawn needs to maximize the lawns potential. In some areas, that will be far more than in others. This has to be determined on an area by area basis. Areas with slopes will require more watering cycles than flat, low areas. Ideally, the more watering time you can give before reaching the point of runoff, the better. Deep watering is almost always preferable, but not always possible. Decreasing watering time and increasing the number of cycles may be the only solution in heavy clay soil and steep slopes.
Climate
In the less arid region of East Texas, less water will be required than in the more desert like conditions of the southwestern part of the state. Annual rainfall, wind patterns, and soil types all play a role in determining irrigation needs.
Fertilization
Soil fertility is important for healthy lawns, and there are many factors involved in determining fertilizer needs. In general, 3 or 4 applications per season will be needed. Most often, 1 pound of nitrogen per thousand square feet of lawn will be appropriate, but this figure can be dropped to one half pound under some conditions, and can be increased to 2 pounds for others. It is preferable to use a slow release fertilizer, which will stretch the effectiveness of your application over a longer period of time. When using a slow release fertilizer like sulfur coated urea, higher amounts of nitrogen can be used since it will not all be released into the soil at the same time.
Cultivation practices
Most people never think of cultivating their lawns. Lawns are grassy areas, and you don’t want to plow them up, but in fact, lawns do need to be cultivated from time to time.
Aerifying
Aerifying a lawn is the act of either poking holes, or removing cores from the lawn to relieve compaction, and provide air and water to the root zone of the lawn grass. It is important, especially in high traffic areas.
Verticutting
Verticutting is another method of relieving compaction, involving cutting small shallow parallel lines in the soil. Both methods will help to keep thatch from becoming a problem.
Pest control
No information about lawn-care would be complete without bringing up pest control. Lawn pests can devastate a lawn, and you should understand what you are dealing with. Keep in mind that the best form of pest control is pest prevention, and using good lawn cultural practices will provide the best means of prevention.
Insect control
Insects that can give you problems in your home lawn include:
- Grubs
- Worms, Sod web worms, Army worms, Cut worms
- Mole crickets
- Cinch bugs
- Mosquitoes
- Ants
Weed control
Weeds are pests too! dealing with weeds will become a part of your life if you plan to have a nice lawn in the state of Texas. Remember that weeds are just plants in the wrong place. Blackberries growing in your lawn are weeds. Bermuda-grass growing in your garden is a weed. Most weeds fall into 2 categories:
Broad leaf
These are the plants that most of us think of when we hear the word “weeds”, but there are other types.
Weedy grasses
Some grasses become weeds when they are not the right kind of grasses for our lawns. Bahia grass, Johnson-grass, grass burrs, nut-sedge, and Dallis-grass come to mind. They are out of place in your fine Bermuda-grass or St. Augustine lawn, and are therefore weeds.
Lawn diseases
There are a large number of lawn problems in Texas that are known as diseases. Most of them have to do with one of 2 different causes.
Fungal
Almost every lawn disease is a result of fungus. Knowing what type of fungus is causing the problem will lead you to the proper treatment. In most cases fungus problems are a result of over watering, or over fertilizing. Golf course managers often syringe the grass on their courses to break up the droplets of water that can encourage fungal growth. Excessive water and excessive nitrogen are a perfect recipe for an out break of fungi that can eat your lawn in a matter of hours.
Nematodes
These round worms range from microscopic to almost 2 inches long, and are one of the most abundant types of creatures on the planet with possibly as many as one million different types. A large percentage of nematodes are parasitic, and it is these that damage the root zone of fine turf grass.
Texas lawn alternatives
Who says that a lawn has to be a lawn in the traditional sense? There are alternatives to traditional lawns which use fewer resources, and make more practical use of available space. There are also alternative lawn grasses which require less water and fertilizer.
There is a lot more to know about lawncare and lawn management in Texas, and to learn more, browse around this site for the information you need.