Greenskeeping 101
Lawns. Disparaged by some for guzzling resources, beloved by others as things of beauty, they are without a doubt the best play surface for man or beast and arguably the easiest thing in the garden to care for. Water often, fertilize on occasion and mow once a week and they will be more or less green, even if some of that color comes from weeds. Only gravel requires less work. Growing tomatoes should be so easy.
Spend a few extra hours this spring and you can make your lawn even greener, maybe remarkably so. Rake out some of the thatch and dead clippings, toss down a little fertilizer and maybe some pelletized gypsum, fill in those bare spots with fresh seed or plugs and stand back for some serious growing.
For a complete lawn makeover, rent the power rakes and aeration gear that they use on sports turf. You can even kill the thing off and start over with fresh seed or sod; this is the best time to plant a new lawn. But before you take any of these roads, figure out what kind of lawn you have, because there are two broad categories of lawns grown in Southern California -- cool season and warm season -- and their care is not alike.
Warm-season grasses
As the name implies, these tough, unthirsty grasses grow when the weather is warm, in late spring, summer and early fall. They include:
Bermuda grass. Weedy common Bermuda is probably the most popular lawn grass around older homes. This is the creeping grass that sends out long, fine stolons aboveground and fatter rhizomes below and needs some sturdy edging to keep it in bounds. For areas with full sun, it goes dormant in winter so is often seeded in the fall with annual or perennial ryegrass, which greens the lawn for winter and then dies out as summer approaches, when the Bermuda again takes over.
St. Augustine and Kikuyu. These grow and spread like Bermuda, but the blades and runners are much thicker. Kikuyu is common near the coast (where it was introduced for erosion control a century ago), and the slightly more refined St. Augustine is more common inland. St. Augustine is the best grass for shade and may be found invading shady sections of other lawns.
Cool-season grasses
Most newer lawns (about 85%) are made up of cool-season grasses, usually a so-called turf-type tall fescue. While not as tough as the warm-season grasses, these grow mostly in late fall, winter and spring and are always green. They include:
Turf-type tall fescues. With proprietary brand names like Marathon, Medallion or Triple Crown, tall fescues have no dormant period, though they may struggle though the hottest summer months. These are deep-rooted clumping grasses that don’t spread and can get patchy. The normal tall types are considered best in backyards, where they can take a fair amount of roughhousing. Low-growing kinds have finer blades and need less mowing, though they tolerate less abuse. Fescues can be seeded or sodded.
Shady mixes. Grasses that can tolerate some shade, such as rough bluegrass and creeping red fescue, are often planted as mixes in partially shaded areas.
Once you know what kind of grass you have (and you may have several kinds in one lawn), you can spiff it up with a little special spring care.
Fixing fescue
Cool-season grasses, fescues in particular, need the least amount of annual maintenance. According to James Culley at Stover Seed in Los Angeles, you can fix spots that seem a little thin by raking out dead grass so the soil shows around the blades, then throw down more seed of a similar type (using the recommended amounts on the package). Lawn seed germinates best in the spring and fall months, so this is your golden opportunity.
You can repair larger sections of lawn with panels of sod, available on weekends at some nurseries and suppliers such as Armstrong, Green Thumb and Hydro-Scape Products. Be sure to keep them consistently watered for the first 10 days or they’ll dry and “curl up like a potato chip,” says Culley. To patch, soak the soil and, a few days later, remove the old sod. Scratch up the soil with a rake, scatter a little fertilizer and gypsum and make your patches.
Watching the water
Watering lawns becomes critical in spring as the moisture in the soil from winter’s rains vanishes. It’s important to check your irrigation system, especially if it comes on at night when it can’t be seen. Spreading pelletized gypsum over entire sections of lawn will chemically loosen the soil particles and help water soak in.
It’s important to water fescue lawns deeply and infrequently.
“The worst thing you can do to an established fescue lawn is water every day for a short time,” says Tony Prater of Pacific Sod in Camarillo. Frequent, shallow irrigations can bring on disease, especially in summer. Most of the roots are a foot or more down, so make sure the water gets that deep, then don’t water again until it is almost dry. Depending on your locale, this may mean watering for 15 to 20 minutes every few days, or even once or twice a week.
If you water too often, spring is the time to wean the lawn and start watering it properly. Always water early in the morning, from 4 to 6 a.m. This prevents disease and keeps breezes from blowing the water around.
Weeding, feeding
Because cool-season lawns are growing madly in spring, it’s important to fertilize them. Use a spreader and follow directions. “This is a case where more is definitely not better,” says Prater. If weeds have been a problem in your lawn, he suggests getting a jump on them by using a “weed and feed” product that will prevent weed seeds from germinating.
Pumping up Bermuda
At this time of year, warm-season grasses such as Bermuda are just waking up. A little fertilizer now will be appreciated like that first cup of coffee in the morning, but by late May or June they’re going to need breakfast. Fertilize lightly now and save the big feeding for later; that’s when watering becomes important as well. Bermuda is deep rooted and somewhat drought resistant, so Culley suggests watering for about half an hour once a week.
Thatch (dead grass and stolons) accumulate in Bermuda and should be periodically raked out. You can do this yourself in small areas by cutting the Bermuda so it is half an inch tall and then using a special thatch rake that rips dead grass and runners out. Or rent a power rake or de-thatcher, which will rip out heaps of material (be sure to rake it up and dispose of it).
In areas that have become hard and compacted, you can also aerate with a little tool that pulls out plugs of soil, so water and air can more easily penetrate, or rent a core aerating machine.
