In this episode of the Houston Grass Podcast, Michael talks about springtime lawn care and what you should be thinking about to prepare for the warmer months ahead. Got a question? Call us at 281-431-7441.
Summary of Getting Ready for Springtime Lawn Care
Good morning everyone. This is Michael with Houston Grass, and this is the Houston Grass Podcast. We are in late January now and everything is still really brown and pretty lifeless looking after the big freeze we had right around Christmas.
We had another couple of frosts the last couple of mornings. So it’s going to be a while before we start seeing any green anywhere. But this is where we’re supposed to be here in the depths of winter for South Texas. So as grass maintenance goes, there’s not a whole lot you’re doing right now.
Your Lawn Is Likely Getting Enough Water from Mother Nature
We’re still getting regular rains. We got a big rain last week across most or all of the Texas coast. Not quite as much as they would’ve liked in central Texas, but enough to keep irrigation systems off for now. I bet my irrigation system at the office and at the house have been off for 10 to 12 weeks.
The grass isn’t growing, it doesn’t need much water, and adding water is more of a problem than a help. So it could even be as late as late March before you really need to start talking about water again. And that will depend on how much rain we’re getting on a regular basis I guess.
The first thing we’re going to do is the late February application of Barricade, the pre-emergent herbicide. You’ll definitely want to get that out before those warm days really get coming. You need to create that barrier out there to keep those weed seeds from germinating. So a late February application of Barricade will be the first thing I do.
Start Springtime Lawn Care with Scalping and Fertilization
Once we are fairly sure that the last frost has passed, there’ll be two things you want to do. First, you’ll want to scalp that yard off and get the old stuff bagged up and out of there. Second, you’ll want to apply fertilizer, preferably one of these Nitro Phos products that’s made for our part of the world here.
You want to be fairly certain that the last frost has passed. So we may be talking late February some years, or we might be talking early to mid-March before we get past that last frost. If you cut that grass off too super short and fertilize and then we get a frost, you could damage a lot of tender young vegetation.
If you don’t have a whole lot of weeds, the red bag of Imperial will work for you. It’s just a matter of whether or not you have weeds. If you don’t have any weeds, you just put out the Imperial, which is straight fertilizer.
If you do have some weeds, you can apply one of the Nitro Phos weed and feed types, whether it’s with the Trimec or Atrazine as the active ingredient. You can get either of those at our office in Arcola.
We’ve just gotten several pallets of Nitro Phos products delivered and the price increases aren’t near as bad as they were last year. Last year, the price almost doubled. It looks like it’s just a couple of dollars per bag increase this year.
We’re Can Provide You with Quality Grass Right Now
Another point I’d like to bring up is the fact that we are selling grass. We sell grass year round. The grass is not much to look at right now. You’re basically buying a good root system. The grass is fairly consistently brown after the hard freeze we had around Christmas.
We have sold a a lot of grass though in January. People are getting ahead on their projects. Instead of leaving bare dirt out there that’s going to germinate the weed seeds people are getting it covered up.
When you plant grass at this time of year, you get it out there and get a lot of water on it to get it good and sealed to the ground. Then you just kind of watch it until spring gets here. That’s when your new grass will start greening up and attaching itself to the ground. The only thing you really have to do is keep the heavy traffic off of it in the meantime.
Some Grass Prices May Increase While Others May Not
So we are selling grass now. You may want to take advantage of the current prices. If there are going to be any price increases, they usually do happen March 1st. We’ll be finding out from the farm what that’s looking like before too long. I don’t see anything near as dramatic as far as price increases as I did last year.
The only exception to that may be the Bermuda grass. There’s an extreme shortage of Bermuda grasses in our part of the world right now, and our farm is included in that. There’s just not much of it to be had, so I could see the price on that being increased this year.
I suspect it will remain pretty flat, but we’ll find out about that in about a month. So I just wanted to mention that a little bit.
Looking Forward to Springtime!
Those are the things that we’re looking at here for springtime lawn care. We’ll be warming up before you know it and ready to get it going again. It will be time to get back to mowing and watering and fertilizing and enjoying those hot days like we all know in Texas.
Springtime lawn care will be right around the corner. Thank you for listening and have a good day.
