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2022 Lawn and Landscape


Chico_SA

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3 minutes ago, markstanco said:


Curious, agronomy classes? Degree? Or self learned? I took some agro classes and you seem well read on it.

A peculiar journey of work and finally getting a degree. I started at Texas and had way too much fun and then spent the next years working. It finally dawned on me that I should go back to class. I got the degree at Tarleton and got paid. I've spent more than 30 years doing something with plants. The last ten or so have been mostly dealing with chemicals and what gets called agronomy. 

I still get spotted as the lone Longhorn in a room full of aggy.

 

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Well our yard project ended up being a bit of a disaster. We never got our rain water system to fill enough to have the water we needed coupled with the extreme heat and we planted it in the spring, it ultimately died from a lack of water and stupid extreme heat. Or died enough. 

side rant, septic systems are designed for old style water use and arcane number of bath rooms. all the low flow appliances make it a total mismatch. And on top of that you’re not supposed to have a sprinkler system over a septic field. and on top of that you have to have a yard for the septic discharge. It’s super stupid.

we replanted in November, we have plenty of rain water now but we added a sprinkler system and hooked up to the local water supply - for profit company not the city and not a MUD. So we can now water over and above the septic subject to restrictions.

take two…


 

Edited by troph
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My St. Augustine yard (in Houston) has been a disaster since the drought and water restriction last summer.  There are many patches where all I see are grassroots.  Is this salvageable or should I just go ahead rip everything out and put down new turf? 

grass3.jpg

grass2.jpg

grass1.jpg

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We are in the process of redoing our grass. Our St Augustine just cant handle year after year of the drought and 60+ days of 100+ temps without constant watering which I refuse to do for both conservation and monetary reasons.

I live in the DFW area. I want to use a seeded grass and want to water once a week. Which seeded grass can we use? What is the best way to plant it?

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On 2/22/2024 at 5:56 PM, Chapo said:

My St. Augustine yard (in Houston) has been a disaster since the drought and water restriction last summer.  There are many patches where all I see are grassroots.  Is this salvageable or should I just go ahead rip everything out and put down new turf? 

grass3.jpg

grass2.jpg

grass1.jpg

Oof. Yeah it might be a good idea to reboot. Bermuda is a lot more forgiving than St A.

1 minute ago, UTGrad98 said:

We are in the process of redoing our grass. Our St Augustine just cant handle year after year of the drought and 60+ days of 100+ temps without constant watering which I refuse to do for both conservation and monetary reasons.

I live in the DFW area. I want to use a seeded grass and want to water once a week. Which seeded grass can we use? What is the best way to plant it?

Growing from seed is tricky in the first stage of germination. It has very little root system. Frequent, short duration watering is best, morning, noon and night. Once it gets some roots going you can do the longer less frequent watering, but it's touch and go for the first month or so. As far as kind of turf, it's bermudagrass, buffalo, or zoysia. St. A has a very low germination rate which is why you don't see it anywhere. Zoysia or bermudagrass would be my recommendation and of those two I'd call bermudagrass the more forgiving of cutting back on water in drought conditions. 

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Added

The reason I left out buffalograss is because Houston. It is very very tolerant of low water conditions but it will suffer from too much. Again it's a change from germination to turf maintenance level watering. Once it gets established it's really tough. A pound of N per year is the standard rec. That's next to nothing. 

 

For the record I water once a week. Maybe twice if I am feeling generous. Bermuda doesn't give a shit. It did fine with the drought last summer.

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I just tore up my front yard to put in a driveway. We had St A and I was considering making a change. The problem is I start looking at cost. I would need roughly 21-24 pallets to cover the area I really want done. I could get away with St A and only need 10 pallets (there is still some st a alive I believe). My backyard is all St A as well but I’m going to hold off until I put in a pool. The driveway went over budget, so I’m trying to keep costs in check. Could I seed and be successful with Bermuda?

I’ll add that my sprinklers run off a well so if I need to water heavy to start that’s not an extra expense.

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17 minutes ago, kmac30 said:

I just tore up my front yard to put in a driveway. We had St A and I was considering making a change. The problem is I start looking at cost. I would need roughly 21-24 pallets to cover the area I really want done. I could get away with St A and only need 10 pallets (there is still some st a alive I believe). My backyard is all St A as well but I’m going to hold off until I put in a pool. The driveway went over budget, so I’m trying to keep costs in check. Could I seed and be successful with Bermuda?

I’ll add that my sprinklers run off a well so if I need to water heavy to start that’s not an extra expense.

I would suggest a hybrid bermuda as opposed to straight bermuda.  The drawback is that many don't grow via seed, so you have to sod them, which you've already seen the price.  They tend to be more traffic and drought tolerant (at least according to what I read on the internet).  I have TexTurf 10 and watered once a week during the drought.  The yard was finally starting to brown when the heat broke and I mow it fairly short with a powered reel mower.

 

 

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7 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

Oof. Yeah it might be a good idea to reboot. Bermuda is a lot more forgiving than St A.

Growing from seed is tricky in the first stage of germination. It has very little root system. Frequent, short duration watering is best, morning, noon and night. Once it gets some roots going you can do the longer less frequent watering, but it's touch and go for the first month or so. As far as kind of turf, it's bermudagrass, buffalo, or zoysia. St. A has a very low germination rate which is why you don't see it anywhere. Zoysia or bermudagrass would be my recommendation and of those two I'd call bermudagrass the more forgiving of cutting back on water in drought conditions. 

I will have to go seeds all the way here as I'm not gonna spend money on sod. We might have another drought this year and I'm back at the same place next February.

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Utah

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/turf-buyback-program-utah-lawn/

In January, the state legislature proposed earmarking $12 million to continue paying residents to give their thirsty, high-maintenance grass the old heave-ho.

Since 2019, Utah’s turf buyback program has helped homeowners pull up over four million square feet of lawn. In return, participants get cash to landscape with climate-approved plants or hardscaping.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Has anybody had experience with MSM turf on Bahia grass? Besides measuring it out in grams like a drug dealer, reviews seem positive...assuming correct dosing.


Follow-up
So mixed .062 of a gram to 2 gallons and sprayed, nothing happened. Then I redid my math...again and forgot to move the decimal over. So remixed this morning at .50 of a gram to 2 gallons of water and sprayed. Rounded down for a safer margin of error.

For spot spraying, it is 1 gram per 4 gallons of water. So, it should be good. If that works in the next few weeks, I'll broadcast spray at a lower rate, say .33g to kill my buttonweeds, dollarweeds, broadleaf, etc.




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10 minutes ago, Mother mopar said:

Follow-up
So mixed .062 of a gram to 2 gallons and sprayed, nothing happened. Then I redid my math...again and forgot to move the decimal over. So remixed this morning at .50 of a gram to 2 gallons of water and sprayed. Rounded down for a safer margin of error.

For spot spraying, it is 1 gram per 4 gallons of water. So, it should be good. If that works in the next few weeks, I'll broadcast spray at a lower rate, say .33g to kill my buttonweeds, dollarweeds, broadleaf, etc.



 

The guy who works on my yard swears by MSM turf and said he used it at his own house to knock out Bahia. I used it last year in my yard for the first time and had good results after bumping up the mixture on my 2nd batch. I used a 15 gallon sprayer in the back of my side by side and think I did .3 oz per gallon of water. It worked so much better than relying on weed and feed.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Landscaper friends- how can I tell what type of Bermuda grass I have? I called to get some delivered for a backyard area I need to sod. They said they had three different kinds…when I look online it’s difficult to tell.

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29 minutes ago, Tailgate said:

Landscaper friends- how can I tell what type of Bermuda grass I have? I called to get some delivered for a backyard area I need to sod. They said they had three different kinds…when I look online it’s difficult to tell.

I can tell between common and hybrid but that's about it.

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Fingers crossed I annihilated yucca bugs with my homemade insecticidal soap mix. It’s dark but earlier today I sprayed a whole infestation and tonight I shook the branches and they all fell to the ground with no resistance. 
 

let’s hope troph versus bugs round one went to the trophster. 
 

Happy Season 9 GIF by The Office

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/29/2024 at 2:51 PM, cactusflinthead said:

Utah

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/turf-buyback-program-utah-lawn/

In January, the state legislature proposed earmarking $12 million to continue paying residents to give their thirsty, high-maintenance grass the old heave-ho.

Since 2019, Utah’s turf buyback program has helped homeowners pull up over four million square feet of lawn. In return, participants get cash to landscape with climate-approved plants or hardscaping.

What a great idea.  Texas needs to do something like this on a statewide level.

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On 2/16/2024 at 7:33 AM, troph said:

Well our yard project ended up being a bit of a disaster. We never got our rain water system to fill enough to have the water we needed coupled with the extreme heat and we planted it in the spring, it ultimately died from a lack of water and stupid extreme heat. Or died enough. 

side rant, septic systems are designed for old style water use and arcane number of bath rooms. all the low flow appliances make it a total mismatch. And on top of that you’re not supposed to have a sprinkler system over a septic field. and on top of that you have to have a yard for the septic discharge. It’s super stupid.

we replanted in November, we have plenty of rain water now but we added a sprinkler system and hooked up to the local water supply - for profit company not the city and not a MUD. So we can now water over and above the septic subject to restrictions.

take two…


 

Well take two is kicking it emerald green style! Palisades zoysia - had a hard go with the freeze in January only planting late fall but it’s roaring back. Organic fertilizer, no herbicides, I’ve done 1000 squats pulling spring weeds while the grass established even used vinegar solution some for some weed patches that broke out where the grass was initially barren, but now here we are! grade high enough for septic approval too so that nightmare is over (8 mos ago). Gonna treat it to some compost either fall or next spring and then it’s on like Donkey Kong.
 

 

 

 

IMG_4756.jpeg

IMG_4758.jpeg

IMG_4757.jpeg

 

Edited by troph
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On 4/23/2024 at 10:01 PM, troph said:

Fingers crossed I annihilated yucca bugs with my homemade insecticidal soap mix. It’s dark but earlier today I sprayed a whole infestation and tonight I shook the branches and they all fell to the ground with no resistance. 
 

let’s hope troph versus bugs round one went to the trophster. 
 

Happy Season 9 GIF by The Office

Took about 10 days of vigilance but troph won with no harsh chemicals! 

Three of the four in this pic…

 

IMG_4625.jpeg

Edited by troph
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Ok last landscape post today…

For those thinking about outdoor lighting … we also installed (ourselves) Phillips Hue outdoor lighting. It’s not cheap but it’s a super easy install which makes it a money saver on labor (DIY in a weekend). you don’t need any fancy controllers or set ups and all connectors, transformers and plugs are water proof if installed correctly (which is intuitive and fool proof). so you don’t need a contractor. Operates on the Zigbee platform which creates a mesh network. We use Zigbee all over our house so the outdoor network just picks it up and spreads the mesh easy. The system is super reliable (so far), has a dimmer and infinite color options. Operates on your phone. It’s pretty spectacular imo. You do have to be a little techie (that’s not me). Probably spent $2000 on parts for what you see here, and saved easily that on labor and probably more if we hired a company that specializes in outdoor lighting. 
 

IMG_4679.jpeg
 

full disclosure we turn off ALL outdoor lights at 11pm to give the bugs and nocturnal creatures a break.  

Edited by troph
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On 5/10/2024 at 12:30 PM, BurntOrange&White said:

Anyone in the San Antonio area ever use zoysia? How is it in the shade/sides of house? I don't want to invest a ton of money up front so was thinking of just getting some zoysia all in 1 seed and spreading after trying to get weeds under control. 

 

Not in SA or even Austin anymore but first question is what type? I put in Palisades in Austin and saw Troph did the same. My research came back with Palisades was the best option for the heat. I did not have shade worth anything and the back yard faced west. I let the #$&!!!! St Augustine die in the previous summer inferno and put zoysia in April. Here are a couple of pictures from June/July. Also added 10 feet of gravel to avoid maintenance on that section. Also no comments on why I had a rain gauge - optimistic.

22.thumb.JPG.99dad0bf45ff4b0e7b3a533f057dcd03.JPG

25.JPG

Edited by AUinHsv
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Palisades is doing well in the shade, longer blades not as thick but it’s working. I’ll let you know in 3-4 months if it’s totally legit but that side yard pic gets a lot of shade, a lot.

we also have a ton of rock/gravel space to reduce the turf square footage. That side yard and the front small square probably 10x10 is the only turf not on top of a septic field.

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On 5/18/2024 at 4:22 PM, troph said:

Palisades is doing well in the shade, longer blades not as thick but it’s working. I’ll let you know in 3-4 months if it’s totally legit but that side yard pic gets a lot of shade, a lot.

we also have a ton of rock/gravel space to reduce the turf square footage. That side yard and the front small square probably 10x10 is the only turf not on top of a septic field.

Yeah I've nailed my list down to either emerald or palisades zoysia. My front yard is well shaded because we have some big trees and I really don't want to cut them until they start getting close to hitting sides of our house/front porch. I found a place here in SA that does pallets of palisades for $365/ea.

 

I initially thought Texas St Augustine but I don't like the runners of St Augustine nor do I like the mow length. 

 

@AUinHsv

Edited by BurntOrange&White
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