With some thoughtful planning and dedication, it’s possible to maintain a healthy lawn this summer while saving water.
That's the message that Dean Minchillo with Texas A&M AgriLife conveyed at the Water Talk: Lawn Care 101 event Tuesday at Providence Village Town Hall.
“I like to talk to homeowners and try to help them with their lawn, with their watering schedules, and try to make sure that everybody's doing their part to conserve water,” Minchillo said.
He was joined by Blake Alldredge with the Upper Trinity Regional Water District.
Minchillo explained some of the three most common types of turfgrass found in this region of Texas: Bermuda grass, St. Augustine grass and Zoysia grass.
The Bermuda grass does not tolerate shade and requires more nitrogen fertilizer.
It's most commonly used for golf course fairways and athletic fields.
St. Augustine grass tolerates shade and drought, forms deep roots and establishes quickly.
Zoysia grass has high tolerance for several conditions, including drought, cold and shade.
Zoysia is also good in areas with heavy foot traffic and requires low fertilization.
Turf grass needs about five hours of sunlight to remain healthy, so Minchillo suggested looking into proven shade-tolerant plants for North Texas lawns where turf grass might struggle to grow.
“It's really a good idea to know exactly what it is that you're planting and that you are actually getting what fits your needs,” he said.
To identify the type of turf grass, Minchillo suggested taking a photo and uploading it to apps like Google Lens and iNaturalist's Seek.
He offered a rule of thumb for irrigation: “water deeply and infrequently.”
It can encourage deeper rooting, which helps build turf grass tolerance to stressors such as drought and heavy foot traffic.
Irrigation should be adjusted with the seasons, especially at the peak shoot growth between June and August.
“The ideal watering schedule is the cycle-andsoak method, which works in short cycles,” Minchillo said.
The first cycle saturates the top layer of soil, the second penetrates deeper and the third or fourth is used if needed.
“Your best bet is gonna be like a rotary nozzle that's gonna put out water a lot slower, a lot more bigger droplets, so that's going to help that clay soil absorb a lot faster than the fixed spray, which puts it out pretty quick,” Minchillo said.
To determine mowing frequency, base it on factors like light exposure, temperature, precipitation, growth and nutrient management.
“We don't really want to mow too early in the year,” Minchillo said. “We want to give that grass some time to grow up, so we don't want to scalp to remove all the dander off of it. We want to let it grow, and then we want to start easing it into mowing. And when we do mow it, we want to hit it at the same height all the time.”
One option to maintain healthy grass is soil testing, which the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service offers to provide a breakdown of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels.
Another rule of thumb mentioned in the presentation is to use fertilizer during the active growing phase.
To know how much nitrogen fertilizer to use, there is a fertilizer equation available for free on the Texas A&M AgriLife Learn website.
For further questions regarding lawn care, contact Minchillo at dean.minchillo@ ag.tamu.edu or Denton County Extension Agent Erin Smith at erin. [email protected].
