Last week the weather was in the 90’s and this week it’s in the low 70’s – go figure – that’s Fresno for ya! At least I got to wear my new – lower cost Costco version of Ugg boots!

With the cooler weather rolling in, it reminds me that it’s about that time of the year again for California Buffalograss to go dormant. In a few weeks most lawns will begin to lose their coloring with the decrease in daylight. Some of you lucky people in Socal who don’t experience much of a winter may not lose your green coloring or only see a slight yellowing of your California Buffalograss lawn. But alas for most of us we have to go through the cold gloominess of winter.

While California Buffalograss is in its dormancy period (for most of us that is from November to February/March) you do not have to water or mow it. It will just sit there frozen in time, waiting for the sun to come out again before it starts growing.

If you’re not a fan of having a yellow lawn, you can easily apply a grass colorant to “fake the green” until spring. We recommend Green Lawnger from Gemplers.com. It’s super easy to do, inexpensive and for us it lasted all winter until the green came back into the grass! You’ll probably want to play around with the ratios in an inconspicuous area until you can get your mix just right. Check out the user reviews for some tips. One user adds yellow food coloring to lime up the coloring a bit!

We played around with the ratio of Green Lawnger to water, to find a blend we were happy with! The last test square is fully concentrated undiluted Green Lawnger – just to see what it did…needless to say, it’s not the most natural look!

When have you noticed that your California Buffalograss lawn began to lose it’s color and how have you handled it?