Why September is the most important month for North Texas lawn care. What to do now
It’s a lot easier to get folks revved up and excited about lawn care coming out of winter than it is when we’re peeking out from the air conditioning. We’ve been battered by water bills and sweltered by sweat storms. How can I convince you that you really do want to go out and work on the lawn?
Garden writers in Texas never give up. We tell you that care you give your turfgrass now will be reflected severalfold come springtime. This is the most important month of a lawn’s entire year. I tell you that and I hope you’ll believe me. Here are the things you’ll want to accomplish.
Starting new turf
If you intend to plant new sod you need to do so as soon as you can. Bermudagrass planted now will have plenty of time to develop deep roots to hold soil and survive winter’s cold. Zoysias will, too. St. Augustine? Not so much. Personally, if I were going to plant St. Augustine sod, and if much space were involved, I’d wait for spring. It will turn brown and stop growing with the first exposure to frost or freeze, and believe it or not, that could happen within just 8 or 10 weeks. It’s not worth the gamble with St. Augustine sod. By the same token, it’s also too late to be planting bermuda from seed in North Texas.
Ryegrass is frequently used for winter green grass. It can be for aesthetics, or it could be as a temporary cover for bare ground until warm weather returns next spring. Whatever the reason, planting of cool-season ryegrass should be done from mid-September through mid-October.
Note that a couple of Metroplex suburbs have restrictions about overseeding with rye. They feel that we overuse water when we have it. Perhaps some people may, but other people also overwater dormant bermuda and St. Augustine. I overseed with rye, and other than the day I plant it I do no extra watering beyond what my permanent grass gets.
Feeding your turfgrass
Turf experts will tell you that the fall feeding is the most important fertilization you will make in the course of an entire year. It gives the lawn one more boost for fall growth before frost, plus it helps build up nutrients for early spring growth.
Curiously, you’ll want to use the very same product for your fall feeding that you used for the late winter and early summer applications. Unless a soil test recommends something to the contrary, you’ll probably want to apply a high-quality, all-nitrogen fertilizer with as much as 30% to 40% of its nitrogen in coated or encapsulated form. That will give a certain amount of rapid feeding for fall growth and timed-release feeding for sustained nutrition.
If you are planting ryegrass, use the same material 3 or 4 weeks after it starts growing. Apply it at half the recommended rate, then come back one month later and apply it again at half rate. Repeat in mid- or late February and that will carry it through its entire growing cycle.
Mowing as the leaves start to fall
Some people have the mistaken idea that allowing leaves to collect on their lawns will protect the grass through the winter. That simply is not the case, and I’m sure we’ll be talking about it later here. But for now, just keep the place tidy by mulching the leaves back into the soil.
Mow at the recommended height right up through the first frost. Allowing the grass to grow tall does not improve its winter hardiness. Actually, the opposite is true. Tall grass becomes weak grass and weeds soon move in. On the other hand, this is not the time to scalp your lawn by dropping the mower blade down. That’s an old Texas lawn-keeping tradition that works well in late winter, but you don’t need to do it in fall.
Watering
No one thing that we do is any more critical now or anytime here in North Texas. It’s been a rough second half of the summer and our lawns look the worse for the wear. My suggestion at this point would be to mow to eliminate as many of the tall weeds as you can, fertilize, and then water deeply to get the grass growing again. You ought to see results rather quickly, especially if a few fall rains kick in to assist.
Pre-emergent weedkiller application
It’s time for this once again, and you really don’t get a second chance. Once winter grassy weeds like annual bluegrass (Poa annua), rescuegrass, and even ryegrass (assuming you don’t want it) germinate and start growing, you’ve blown it for another 12 months. You must apply the pre-emergent product of your choice before the seeds sprout, and that means in the first 10 or 12 days of September. Products include Dimension, Halts, Balan, and a couple of other less common types. These all have somewhat similar modes of operation. Read and follow label directions.
It should be noted that annual bluegrass has been observed to have built up resistance to several of the pre-emergent products. If you have had less than perfect results in recent years, that may be the reason. Your best direction is to maintain maximum vigor in your turfgrass so that it can crowd out invading weeds, then to do everything you can to prevent and eliminate any that do show up.
