With March just around the corner I thought I’d share some tips about prepping your California Buffalograss lawn for a season of loveliness!

•  In early spring, mow your buffalograss to a height of 1 inch. This will remove the old grass debris and allow the sun to warm the soil faster so your buffalograss will green up earlier.
• Apply a pre-emergent or a fertilizer with crabgrass and/or annual grassy weed control at this time. Any product available at your garden center should be okay to use. Read and follow the label.
• Repeat this application at a ½ rate in 6-8 weeks for season long control.

And if you’re looking to install California Buffalograss for the first time this spring I can’t stress enough to you how important it is to properly prep your space before you plant!

• It is extremely important to treat your space prior to installation to make sure that an exisiting weeds, plants or lawns have been killed off so that they do not overtake your young plugs when they are establishing. Take extra time and extra care to make sure you’ve killed off everything before you install your plugs and save yourself some major stress!
• Often, this is a 3-4 week process. After killing off your existing lawn or weeds with a product such as Round-Up, you will want to wait several days and then begin to regularly water your space to encourage existing weeds and grass to come up.
• Apply another application of Round-Up to anything that pops up.
• Repeat this process until everything is eradicated.

Taking the time to do this before installation will save you from the headache of having isolate the weeds or old grass from the establishing California Buffalograss plugs. Here is a list of helpful advice from the Lazy Gardens blog on what to do before your installation!

Well fall is definitely here – we had a bit of a rain storm yesterday and it was actually a nice change of pace from the dry summer heat that’s swallowed us for the past several months. Now that the weather is cooling down and the length of daylight is shortening, your California Buffalograss will probably begin to go into dormancy towards the end of the month. And with California Buffalograss going into hibernation so will my blog posts – no grass news equals no blog news! I’ll check in here and there, and I’ll be back in full next spring when the grass is green again!

Be sure to get subscribed to us some how (blog, facebook, email – all accessible on the right hand column our blog or via our website) so that you can stay updated on the latest happenings! I’ll be creating a short demo video later in the winter to show you how to apply a colorant to your dormant lawn for a natural look that will last all winter long! Stay in touch to be notified 😉

An old pic I just found on my desktop of a California Buffalograss lawn that has never been mowed. I think I kinda prefer the look of it natural!

Here we are looking at fall now…towards the end of October many of you will see your green California Buffalograss lawns begin to transition to into their golden dormancy shades. Here are some seasonal tips to get you through until spring pops up again:

• Fall maintenance should be minimal. Water if needed. The late fall is an excellent time to control any broadleaf weeds. During this cool weather any broadleaf weed control may be used, including 2-4D products.
• In the late winter, you can repeat the fertilization process to encourage the grass to begin growing again or you can just sit back and relax until spring rolls around!

A couple of Saturdays ago we also hosted the Fresno Master Gardeners at our facility for a tour about the whole process of how plants get to market. There were 98 Master Gardeners and friends, that’s a whole lot of plant people!

Are you almost there, but battling with some bare spots in your California Buffalograss lawn?

Here’s what worked for Mike:

“I ended up digging them out about 6″ deep and putting in topsoil from a bag, the wattered the heck out of it and mowed it about everyweek…that seems to be doing the trick…”

“…most of the spots are all but gone and the one remaining bad spot should be gone in a couple more weeks”

And here’s his lawn at 4 months: