By now most of you are probably doing what I do all day and that is watching grass grow. If you threw down seed to overseed your warm season lawn in the last couple weeks it surely has sprouted,and should be filling in quite nicely with our weather.  It always amazes me how quickly ryegrass grows at this time of the year. You can check your lawn before you leave for work in the morning, and by the time you get home it has grown a ½”. It usually takes about 7-10 days to get your lawn really going, but once it does you will start to see the grass tiller and fill in any voids in your lawn.

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With the heavy rains and slightly cooler temperatures we had this past week no doubt people are thinking about overseeding. By the way, if your sprinklers are still set to on, turn them OFF. While the calendar says September 11^th we’re still a few weeks away from having temperatures in the optimal window. Overseeding does not need to be a one day process. You can begin the process a little early and then when temperatures are in the 60’s at night you will just need to give your lawn one last haircut, drop the seed and begin watering.

Prepping for overseed is often a large ordeal, but starting the process gradually you can eliminate the headaches associated with trying to get it all done in one afternoon. I want to reiterate something I have said for the past few years. The height of the grass is not associated with a quality overseed. In other words scalping the grass down to the dirt does not guarantee good results, but opening up the turf canopy does. The shorter you mow your lawn the tighter the leaf blades become making it harder to get the ryegrass seed into the plant. If the seed is lying on the surface it will be slow to germinate and much of the seed will be lost. The seed needs a base to grow out of and getting inside the grass plant allows for perfect moisture, heat, and a solid growing medium. By looking at my last statement you can now understand why I have said without a good warm season grass base you will most likely have a poor ryegrass season. The seed will establish much faster inside a healthy grass stand than it will on bare dirt. Read the rest of this entry »

As we move through the dog days of summer in California and Arizona, now is a good time to evaluate your turfgrass lawn. The summer is the optimal time to grow warm season turfgrasses so it is important to get good growth before the end of the season. The golden rule is that all warm season grasses need to have 100 days of growing without any competition in order to maintain their health. That is 100 days without any lingering ryegrass in the way. Think back to when the ryegrass was completely out of your lawn? Was it June or did it hang around until July? If you didn’t transition it by mowing lower and verticutting then most likely you still had some ryegrass until the humidity increased and wiped it out in July. Read the rest of this entry »

I thought it would be nice to put up some pictures of common summer issues–and some easy solutions. While there are several areas I could expand,  I’ll leave it to the most common areas of concern for now……

Scalping

During the summer months you will see scalping in turf for a variety of reasons but some of the most common are:

1. Lawn is too lush or juiced up on fertilizer

2. The lawn is too thick and it needs to be verticut to remove dead material between grass blades.

3. The mower blades are too dull or the wheels of the mower are set to uneven heights. The picture above represents this very well. Read the rest of this entry »

Pets are as much a part of our families as our kids, and keeping them happy is important. Do you know what makes for a happy dog? A beautiful lawn!

Did you know that putting in grass has been shown to reduce ground temperatures by as much as 30 degrees? We continually see a trend for people to use rocks in their yards because they don’t like the perceived maintenance of a yard.  In this day and age it is important to think about the environment. Sod cleans the air and helps recharge our groundwater supplies. Turfgrass is one of nature’s finest and least expensive filters, and works to improve the environment.  The front lawn of just 8 homes has the cooling effect of 70 tons of air conditioning. Just think how happy you and your pets would be to walk around during the summer months if everyone had natural grass in their yard.  You can have a beautiful lawn and be responsible if you water wisely.  Grass doesn’t waste water–people waste water.

Keep your dog cool–put in real grass!

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With the rising temperatures we have quickly entered the best time of the year to plant sod. I’m sure a few of you just read the first sentence and thought that I was crazy since we’re hitting 105-110 degrees most days. Warm season turf is so well adapted to this type of weather that establishing a lawn during the summer is a simple process with the right prep work and follow up. I’m going to outline some simple cost effective steps for those looking to put in a lawn this summer.

Living in the desert we all know that water is scarce so we want to do our best to preserve it and not overuse it. One of the best water saving tips is putting in an automatic sprinkler system. Before I proceed I will tell you that I don’t recommend putting in a new lawn without one. A good sprinkler system will allow you to put out the correct amount of water in a given period of time and will help eliminate waste.

BOBSod does very well during the hot summers.

Setting up a manual sprinkler or hose is inefficient, time consuming, and most of all it is very tough to gauge the amount of water you actually put out. Before putting in an irrigation system you should by a small gauge to check your homes water pressure. Knowing how much water pressure you have will determine how many sprinklers can be on each valve. Depending on the area you will be watering you may need a couple to several valves to correctly operate your irrigation system. Most sprinkler systems are set up with a valve that controls the drip lines to the plants and then a valve for each section of the turf. A home with 1000 square feet of turf will typically have two valves to control the lawn. If you have very low water pressure you will probably need to add a third valve so less sprinklers are running at one time.

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The word transition tends to conjure up some ugly thoughts in people’s minds. Transition is often used to describe moving from one stage to another or in the case of sports teams are often transitioning from one style of play to another. Fans of sports teams cringe when they hear the word transition and the same is true for most turf managers but with turf it is often an easy fix. My goal today is to answer some frequently asked questions on transition, sod install, fertilizer and watering for the summer. If you have another question that I didn’t list please let me know.

Q.     I overseeded my lawn last fall and I can’t get the ryegrass to die off. Can I turn the water off and kill it?

A. Yes and no. You can turn the water off and severely stunt or kill the ryegrass but you will also do some serious harm to your warm season turf. It is best to cut your water back 30-40% and let it fade away with the warmer temperatures.

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We’re getting closer to the overseeding process! I am sure many of you reading my blog have started to see perennial ryegrass arriving in stores by the truck full, but we are still a little early. It isn’t too early to start some of the initial prep work, but it is still a little hot to drop seed. I realize that some of you won’t have a choice in the timing of overseeding, but if you do have a choice it is best to wait. Today’s blog is going to give you 10 easy steps on how to overseed and establish a great lawn for the winter. I have also attached a short video on doing so. www.youtube.com

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Our 4 weeks of spring are coming to an end as the forecast appears to be touching close to 100 degrees for the next week.  I am being hopeful when I say that it is only for the next week, but most likely the cooler weather is behind us, the soil temperature is going to rise quickly.  It will be bermuda/paspalum season before we know it. 

The soil temperature is still hovering right around 60 degrees so we have not seen an excessive amount of growth with our warm season grasses, but I am sure most people are starting to see their lawns green up quickly.  If you did not overseed this past year and your lawn is a little behind on color the answer is fertilizer.  The Soil Burst starter 5-15-10 is your answer because we are looking to warm up the soil and using this dark pelletized granular will get you going in the right direction.  The magnesium, calcium, and iron will give your lawn a great kick start and get it ready for the growing season as it begins to arrive.  The nice part of using a slow release product like this is that you can expect to receive 4-6 weeks of results.  Read the rest of this entry »