Lawn Care Calendar

Spring Lawn Care
Summer Lawn Care
Fall and Winter Lawn Care

Let’s be honest: everyone envies a beautiful, healthy lawn. The kind that turns people’s heads while they’re out for a Sunday drive. The kind that makes your whole landscape look put-together and well-maintained. That lush, green lawn has always been a prestigious accomplishment, sometimes valued over abundant blooms. This is because maintaining a perfect lawn is hard. But with our seasonal lawn care calendar, it’ll be no time before you have a lawn that’ll have your neighbors wondering just how you did it.

Spring Lawn Care

Let’s start in the spring, a time to recuperate your lawn from the chilly days of winter. Don’t be discouraged by a soggy, yellow garden. With a little bit of care, you’ll be able to wake up your lawn and bring it back to life!

Our lawns have been in a slow growth phase and have a thatch layer that is ready to be removed. This is simple, just lower your mower deck, mow low, and bag your first mowing.

Next, it’s time to wake it up! Apply a spring green-up lawn food like Nitro-Phos 15-5-10 or MicroLife Hybrid 20-0-4. Both are blended right here in Houston especially for the special needs of our lawns.

Weeds are always a source of concern in a dormant St. Augustine lawn. During the slow growth phase, it appears that weeds are winning, but once the lawn wakes up, the race is off! And actively growing, healthy St. Augustine will win every time!!  If you feel that you need to treat for weeds, though, bring samples and/or pictures of your weeds to the store and we can direct you to the best solution.

For a more proactive stance against weeds, pre-emergent herbicide, like Nitro-Phos Barricade, can be applied throughout the year to prevent weeds that spread from seed. Pre-emergents don’t kill weeds that are up, they just stop new ones from forming.

Summer Lawn Care

Once summer arrives, grass will begin to grow much quicker. You might find yourself opting to mow with a low blade to give yourself some more time between cuttings. But, like us, the ground wants some protection from the hot Texas sun, too.

Cutting your lawn too short allows the soil to heat up and dry out much quicker. Taller grass has deeper roots and will compete with weeds and tolerate heat much better. A good rule of thumb is to continue cutting just one-third of your lawn’s height off at a time. Leave the cuttings where they are, since they’ll recycle nutrients back into the soil and act as mulch to keep the soil from drying out too quickly!

We know how important hydration is for staying safe in the dry summer heat, and our lawns are no different. Watering your lawn deeply but infrequently will encourage deeper roots and a lush, green lawn. The best time to water is early in the morning. Avoid watering your lawn at night, because it can encourage fungus to grow. Also, avoid watering mid-day. Moisture quickly evaporates when the sun is high in the sky!

As far as fertilizing goes, follow a schedule like Randy Lemons with Gardenline.  This will keep your lawn fed, happy, and less likely to develop a weed attack. But if for some reason weeds invade, bring them to the store for identification and guidance. Self-diagnosing and treating can be tricky and even fatal to your St. Augustine if the wrong product is applied at the wrong temperature!

Chinch bugs can also be a problem in our summer months – damaging our precious green space and making it appear dry. If you know your sprinklers are, in fact watering the area, get to the store and we will steer you to the RIGHT insecticide for the problem. There are a lot of products that say they will work, but they don’t, and chinch bugs can wipe out a lawn quick, so make sure you are using the most effective solution!

Fall and Winter Lawn Care

While you may be warmed by the blazing colors of autumn, there’s no place for fallen leaves on your lawn. Rake the leaves as often as you can to keep the sun shining on your lawn and prevent a soggy spring carpet of decayed matter.

It might seem like your grass is at a standstill compared to the vigorous growth of summer, but it actually keeps growing into the fall. This is a good time to repair damaged spots from summer stress, whether it be from drying out or insects. Compost topdressing and laying new sod can also be done now. The sod will have an easier time developing roots as we start to cool down and have an increase in rainfall.  

Speaking of an increase of rainfall, make sure to back your sprinklers off if we are getting an 1” or more per week. This will lessen the chances of brown patch fungus forming in the fall and winter. If fungus spot does form, though, treat it with a granular that is listed for brown patch and visit the store with pictures for identification and we’ll direct you to the right cure.

Like the rest of the garden, maintaining a green landscape takes time and effort, and the key to a healthy, green lawn is year-round maintenance. Keep your lawn in tip-top shape and start setting the pace on your block with this schedule for a lawn that will be as green as the envious faces of your neighbours all season long!