Turfgrass and Lawn

 Today on “In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners”, Master Gardener and KUCI Staff host Bill Brooks talks with an expert on one of the most ubiquitous features of Southern California landscapes. The topic this week is TURF! We’re talkin’ Lawn, Grass, Turf, Turfgrass, and Sod which all mean the same! Bill talks with Mike Henry, former Turf Advisor in Orange County and one of the originators of the Master Gardener program in this county. Mike’s vast research over the last 40 plus years has made him an expert in all things turf-related. Just about every aspect is covered in this short one-hour show such as decisions: seasonal (cool/warm), seed/sod, meadow/manicured; what fertilizers to use and when; maintenance (mowing, weeding, watering). How about Artificial ? Join us to find out the ins and outs, and pluses and minuses of growing turf. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The opinions expressed on this show are not necessarily those of the station, the university, or the UC Board of Regents. For more information on this show, visit KUCI.org. You're listening to 88.9 KUCI in Irvine. This is in the garden with your host, Bill Brooks, University of California Master Gardener. We're talking to Mike Henry about turf grass and lawn today. Turf grass, grass, sod, and lawn are all synonymous terms. Not only is Mike's expertise in turf grass, but from 1987 to 1993, Mike was the Orange County Director for the UC Cooperative Extension. I'm going to let Mike tell us a little more about his role as county director. Welcome, Mike. Tell us about your role as director for UC Cooperative Extension in Orange County.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Hi, Bill. Thank you. You know, my uh career with UC Cooperative Extension started in Orange County in 1976. But the office had been in Orange County since 1918. And at some point I actually met the first farm advisor in Orange County. He was uh well into his 90s, I think, but he was still uh active with the Farm Bureau. And uh so I was the uh turf and uh public service advisor in Orange County until the late 80s when I became the county director. So I was the administrator for the office. We had 16 employees. Uh the 4-H program is part of cooperative extension, uh, the Master Gardener program is part of cooperative extension, and then advisors who are university uh academics work with uh the industry in agriculture or horticulture, and we always have a nutrition education program. So there's a uh home economist who specializes in uh food and nutrition in the office. So that's a little bit of about cooperative extension in Orange County.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, we now have master food preservers at the office, too. And if you were to go to the office, it doesn't probably look much different than when you were flats there. It's also my understanding that you started the Master Gardener program here in Orange County. Can you tell us a little bit about establishing a Master Gardener program and what it was like more than 30 years ago?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Sure. The county discontinued funding for our office. I moved to Riverside County. My colleague, who uh started one of two of the first Master Gardener programs in California, uh, Ted Staman, had retired, and so there was an opening there. And even though I'd worked in Orange County, I really hadn't had time to start a Master Gardener program until I left. So in uh in the mid-90s, I started uh the Master Gardener program in Orange County. But the program in Riverside County that I was all also in charge of was uh you know, had been going for at least 20 years, and so I had worked with my colleague Ted Staman. So I knew a lot about the Master Gardener program. In the early days, I in Orange County I cooperated uh with Cal State Fullerton Arboretum, so they offered some support as far as having kind of built-in volunteers that wanted to become Master Gardeners and a facility that we could meet in, and uh it was a good headquarters. We asked anyone who wanted to become Master Gardeners to sign up, and we provided uh a number of months uh of training, kind of supervised what uh what Master Gardeners did, and uh and the support from the Fullergen campus and the Fullerton Automarina really really helped get it started as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

So you helped really set up what Master Gardeners were to do in Orange County, because we've gone a ways beyond just calling in for a helpline, so we do a lot now.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Yeah, right. So yeah, there's uh you know all kinds of things that Master Gardeners get involved in. And as I said, the the group in uh Riverside County had been going for a long, long time. So so I had uh you know, I had the that group to kind of draw upon as I helped form the one in Orange County.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

That's exciting, and thank you for doing that. It's uh you know, part of this show evolved out of your work. So, changing subjects here a little bit, you've spent your career studying turf grass, and please tell us a little bit about what you did as a turfgrass researcher.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

One of the real advantages of being in Orange County is that there's a University of California uh agricultural research station actually in Irvine. Not too many people know that. It's out um east of the what used to be the El Toro Marine Base, and it's uh 280 acres, I think, that uh is dedicated to agricultural research and turf grass research. Uh once I uh started, I helped expand that a little bit, and we had turf grass research projects there throughout uh my career until I retired in 2009. So those my my research really focused on introducing new varieties and species that are adapted to growing in Southern California, Orange County. You know, at that time uh when I first started, there were there was a drought, and uh it lasted for five years, and then there was a little respite, and then 15 years later there was another drought. And so my research focused on grasses that would be adapted climatically to Orange County, but also ones that would be accepted by people in Orange County because most of those grasses that are low water using are what we call warm season grasses. They're genetically derived from grasses from subtropical and tropical regions. And even in a mild climate like Orange County, uh a lot of warm season grasses go dormant. They turn brown in the winter and then green up again in the spring. So we were looking for warm season grasses that were low water using, but also had the ability to hold green color in the winter uh in a coastal climate in Southern California.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

And I know you even got to go all the way to Wimbledon to study grasses. What makes the grass grow so well there?

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Well, it's it's cool and it rains a lot in England. So we don't have it uh much of very we don't have it in any part of Southern California. So so that's uh and of course they're using um cool season grasses because that's the that's the group of grasses that are adapted to their climate there.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yeah, because uh so that leads me into the next question, which grasses as we all know does use a lot of water. In Southern California, people have been removing their turf grass in order to save water. Can you tell me a little bit about the benefits of having turf grass planted in one's yard?

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I uh I think it looks nice. It's hard to lay out on ground covers in the sun if you would like to do that. It it does provide a cooling environment that uh, especially in really hot climates, maybe more in inland Orange County and Southern California, it uh it does it does uh significantly cool the environment right next to your house or or uh uh uh you know a playground or a school. So that's a big advantage of uh turf grass. It's an area you can walk on and uh and feel cooler.

unknown 8:52

The the other advantages are that it's it's pretty you know, it's pretty easy to take care of. Uh you have to mow it, but even mowing reduces a lot of the weeds.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

So you know, uh a weekly mowing is often all you have to do except fertilizing it a couple times a year and mowing and watering. So you're those are the big three.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Do you do you know of any studies that show that because again a lot of people have removed their grass in Southern California that we're getting a heat increase because of the heat that is generated by having all the buildings in concrete? Is there any information?

SPEAKER_02 9:31

I don't I don't, Bill. And I uh you know, not everyone's taking out the the grass cover, but to be fair, trees and shrubs also provide some cooling as well. So it's not just turf grasses. Okay. Um and you know, most people in Southern California have very small lawns, uh, even before they take them out. So uh it's it's not a huge area like it is in other parts of the country where they they have you know half acre of lawn.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Okay, and and again, artificial turf is becoming more popular within the county and all of Southern California. If I was thinking about installing artificial turf, what's the negatives? Because I know I'm going to save water, but what are the negatives for having artificial turf?

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Well, uh artificial turf used to look pretty plastic, but I have to admit the ones that are produced today are are really quite beautiful and and uh functional. Um I have a colleague who's also retired from the Orange County Cooperative Extension office, who um he moved into Tuston, and the the homeowner association didn't allow artificial turf. Well, he um in the front yard he had kind of a slope that he had ground cover on, and and then right behind that, between that area and the garage, he put in artificial turf and he he let a few weed seeds germinate so it looked even more real, but people couldn't get up right close to it, and and nobody ever realized that he had artificial turf, even though it was illegal. So um the big disadvantage is the cost, it's very expensive to install, and it's uh you know, if you're in a sunny area, it can get uh 30 degrees hotter than live turf because it's it's not transpiring water, it has no cooling effect. Um in sports, uh a lot of the professional sports fields went to artificial turf in the 80s and 90s, but they were getting so many injuries, uh mostly knee and ankle injuries, on their multi-million dollar football players, that they they pretty much have decided that the safety aspect is gonna outweigh the the uh the uh artificial turf benefits, and they've gone back to to live turf. So um so that in in a in a nutshell is is a little uh about the differences and the advantages of live turf and the disadvantages of of artificial turf.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Yeah, I remember going to the Houston Astrodome as a child, and of course they had astroturf in there, and you could buy a little square of astroturf in their gift shop, and it was considered uh cutting edge at the time, and and you're right, that's all disappeared because that was really slippery to play on.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Yeah. Well, and also, you know, it it there's no give underneath it. So a football player wearing cleats um would often catch a cleat in the artificial surface, and he might turn, but his ankle wouldn't turn. So it it it was somewhat dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Yeah, I I can see that. So again, water is our focus here, and a typical lawn requires how much water. And I know you showed me this cool evapro map before we started, so maybe you could talk a little about that.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

It's um the California uh irrigation management information system. It's part of the the uh State Department of Water Resources. So they have a map that shows the water use in each, well, all over California. So just to give you an idea, right on the coast in Orange County, the water use by Bermuda grass or another warm season grass is 28 inches a year. If you grow a cool season grass that's uh a higher water use like fall fescue, uh 37 inches per year. Once you get uh maybe 10 miles inland, the the water use is higher. Again, with warm season grasses like Bermuda, uh a couple inches more, 30 inches per year versus uh 40 inches per year for tall fescue.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

So that would be in an area like like uh El Toro and Right, in inland and where you're cut off from those coastal breezes. Is that map available online or that information that you're gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Yeah, I just uh I just printed it online. Okay. If you go to um well, I just Googled um I think I Google water use in Orange County, California. Uh, you'd be better off if you uh Google Simus, capital C-I-M-I-S. That stands for the California Irrigation Management Information System. And that will come up, and uh, I'm sure they have this map. It's called the Referenced Evapotranspiration Zones.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Interesting. That's going to be an excellent resource. And speaking of water, I often hear people debate about the best time to water your turf grass, uh, whether it's night, early morning, midday. What's your suggestions for water time?

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Well, it's it's likely that if you're watering in Orange County, uh if you water in the afternoon, your sprinklers water is going to evaporate more readily before it hits the ground than if you water early in the morning. So early morning is generally the best time because you're you're losing less to evaporation due to the hot uh hot air temperature.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Perfect. And I know if I go to my home center and I buy a piece of sod, if more than likely it's going to be that tall fescue, which you mentioned was a cold uh season type of grass. Yeah, cool. So what should I buy? What would what would be my best species of grass to grow in Orange County?

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Well, uh it kind of depends on your what you're looking for. If you're trying to save water, you'd want to go with a warm season grass. Um the most common warm season grass is seeded Bermuda grass. Um a lot of people don't like it because it has runners that grow into their flower beds. Um and as they say, it does it does go off color uh turning brown in the cooler months. Um the other options are harder to find are um zoysia grasses that are have been bred by uh UC Riverside. Uh the varieties are Victoria and Eenza. Those are named after streets in Riverside. Um and the the turf breeders uh there that developed those again looked for a grass that would be less likely to turn brown in the winter and yet still use much less water than tall fescue. Um zoisiagrass is also fairly shade tolerant, whereas Bermuda grass is not. So you know you could um grow zoisia grass and kind of have the best of both worlds. You'd have low water use and a good chance of having green color in the fall and winter if you continue fertilizing it in those months. And uh there's there's a lot of other choices that are not as easy to find or get a hold of, but those are two that um that you can get as thod or stolens, which are runners that you plant into the soil and uh water pretty much like seed. Uh sod you you you don't have to water it four times a day after you plant it, unless it's really hot in Orange County, like in the 90s. But um you you still need to water sod new sod two or three times a day for the first three or four weeks until it it root it roots into the the uh native soil.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

So what so you you you kind of answered my second question about seed or sod, and the it sounds like the difference is that seed is going to need more water more times a day to germinate correctly.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

It needs more frequent irrigation, yeah. You want to keep the the seed in that upper thin layer where the seed of soil uh with the seed in it, you want to keep it uh moist. And that may be requiring four times a day. And then once the seed comes up, you gradually reduce the frequency. And uh typically with something like tolfescue, it's a cool season grass, you want to plant that in the spring. If you're planting warm season seed, like um, well, there's actually uh Zoisia grass seed that's available, there's um seeded Bermuda grasses, uh, and those you could plant uh a little later in the late spring and summer.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

I I see, and it sounds like for some of these grasses, like the Victoria or the Dannes, I'm gonna have to plant as seed because it's not available as sod. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Uh no, it is available as sod. Oh, it is.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Oh, that's good to know.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

It's not it's not available as seed. It's vegetatively propagated. So um you have to find a sod company that grows. Uh the one in um the one in the Coachella Valley West Coast Turf grows both of the UC Riverside Zoysia grasses, and uh you can buy sod or stolens. So they basically chop up sod because it has runners, they can you can plant those runners and uh they start to grow, and you know, you can cover a bigger area at less cost.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Okay. All right. Good to good to know. So the preparation of my soil, how how do I want to prepare the soil, and is it the same for seed and sod?

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Yeah, it is the same. Uh a lot of people just try and scrape off the old weeds and throw sod on it, and um it's it's hard for grass to struggle uh to initiate new roots into hard soil. So you need to rotatill the soil, um, add some, maybe some amendment if it's a really hard soil, something like uh composted green waste, peat moss, um something that's going to kind of make the soil uh stay open longer until the roots establish. Um and then you need to fertilize. Uh and that there are fertilizers that are designed for putting into the soil right before you put sod down or plant seed. Um, and and those are generally fertilizers that have nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and the Nitrogen is usually in a at least a good portion of it in a slow releasing form, so it lasts a long time while you're watering three or four times a day.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

With my fertilizer numbers with sod, do I want to vary those those nitrogen potassium numbers or is it pretty consistent?

SPEAKER_02 22:20

You know, it's um you know, any any fertilizer you get for lawns would would be fine. Okay. You know, you you don't want super high nitrogen, but you especially for planting, you want a good amount of phosphorus and potassium. And and uh, you know, all of the fertilizer companies have lawn fertilizers. And some even have what they call starter fertilizer that's especially adapted for or formulated for uh seeding or to get the roots growing versus the grass itself growing.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

So that the roots are not gonna be. Yeah, because then you get a weak lawn that after the nitrogen goes and it seems to die.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Uh that I know you want to make sure you've you've you've got kind of a balance there, especially in the beginning, after it's established. Um you could just plant with a straight or fertilize after you're it's well after planting with just a nitrogen fertilizer for a good part of a year, and then uh generally I recommend uh a complete fertilizer that has nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium uh in the fall for cool season grasses, and in the spring for warm season grasses.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Okay, so what about uh steer manure or chicken manure? Is that too high in nitrogen to use on a new lawn, or should I put that on an old lawn, or you not use it at all?

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Well, um I would I wouldn't put it on the lawn, no. I'd put uh put them on the soil and mix that into the soil before you plant the seed or the sod.

unknown 24:16

Um you have to, once it's established, you have I wrote some notes here.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

You have to put on an awful lot of steer manure to provide enough nitrogen for an established lawn.

unknown 24:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

So generally we recommend uh a certain amount of fertilizer per thousand square feet, and uh you'd have to put on 20 pounds of steer manure per thousand square feet to provide enough nitrogen for uh an established growing lawn. And that's that's kind of a lot to deal with, but also the smell isn't that great.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yes, I was gonna say I think my neighbors would be rather upset with me if I put that much steer manure on my lawn or chicken manure for that matter.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

So chicken manure is even worse. Uh it's uh it's a higher in nitrogen, so it's it's a lot more tricky. I wouldn't recommend the novice to use chicken manure, but um you know, steer manure i i it's low, it's you know, four or five, six percent nitrogen. Uh chicken manure is up around eight to eleven percent, and that can be a little uh difficult to put on just the right amount.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah, it is. I know that it is uh uh concentrated. So installing a sod lawn, is that a job that a homeowner can do, or is that best left for a professional?

SPEAKER_02 25:52

You know, it's um it depends on how how much exercise you want.

unknown 25:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

You know, you can uh there's there's not too much to uh planting a sod uh lawn. Um you have to be ready to plant it immediately when it arrives. Um and usually the trucks will come in from uh the desert or they come in from Camarillo into Orange County early in the morning, and you have to have everything ready. You have to have your irrigation system set up, you have to have the soil rototilled, you have to have your amendment rototilled, you have to have the starter fertilizer, uh maybe not rotatilled deeply, but at least uh ranked deeply uh with a uh with a solid time rate. And then uh then you you just have to unroll it or unfold it and uh place it in your um in your lawn area, and um hopefully you're not picking a really hot day so you you can get it all placed before uh it starts drying out. Then you have to immediately water it. Uh the main thing is you want to get the seams of the uh grass really close together so that they don't dry out. If you don't do that, you end up with dead rectangles along the edge. The rest of it will grow probably, but it doesn't look too good for a number of months.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

And I want to stagger my seams as well.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

That's yeah, the end seams you want to make sure they don't all line up. Yeah, so you you want to plant the first row and then you plant the next row so that the end of it ends in the middle of the row before. So you have to cut it a little bit with uh an X-acto knife or a carpet knife to kind of make it all fit, but it it's really not that difficult. The difficulty is that a lot of sod has um um a nylon mesh in it, and that's a little hard to cut. But other than that, it's pretty pretty easy to cut it and get it the where you want it in the place you want it.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

I've actually used an old kitchen knife that I bought at Goodwill store that works great for cutting sod, and it seems to go through that nylon mesh netting.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Yeah. It has to be sharp. That's a good idea, Bill. Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

The opinions expressed on this show are not necessarily those of the station, the university, or the UC Board of Regents. For more information on this show, visit kuci.org. You're listening to 88.9 KUCI in Irvine. This is in the garden, and we're talking about turf grass with UC Turf Researcher, educator Mike Henry, and we're going to continue on with our interview. This planting of seed, installing sod, I know you kind of answered that question a little bit, but give us a better idea of the best time through of the year to do my planting or installing.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Okay. Well, let's start off with seed. If you're planting seed of uh, say Bermuda grass or Zoisia grass or buffalo grass, these are all warm season grasses, you um you don't want to plant them when it's still cold. You need the soil warm. So uh late spring in Orange County, probably April, late April, May. Um, and you don't want to wait too long because you want all of that seed to come up and grow and fill in before it stops growing in October or November. So um that's why I say to plant it in late spring or very early summer. Um cool season seed, most of the cool season grasses are are um seeded, so uh that would be Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, uh tall fescue. Uh we don't recommend Kentucky bluegrass in Orange County because it's it's too warm in the summer and it tends to get diseases a lot. But uh tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, you can plant those in the fall ideally. Again, you don't want to wait too long, but uh like October, November, when things are cool, uh the grass grows through the winter very nicely, and uh you're gonna get good growth and good fill-in if you if you plant it then. If you try and plant it in the spring and summer, um, it's very likely you'll get um soil-borne diseases attacking the seed, and and you'll end up with a lot of damage. So so they're not really adapted to being planted in hot weather. Now, sod is a little more forgiving. You don't uh you don't have to worry so much about the delicate seed and diseases or anything like that. The worst time to plant sod would be the middle of winter because you're not going to get a lot of root growth, uh, and you want that sod to put down roots and become established pretty quickly. So, other than you know, the dead of winter, December, January, early February, um, you could plant sod just about any time. Okay. Uh even even warm season sod. The growers in the desert were you likely to get hybrid Bermuda or um or you could even get uh St. Augustine sometimes, but like Zoisia grass, they often in the in the fall, they often plant a cool season grass into the sod so it looks nice and green, but it's not growing out there, so so you have to keep uh watering it to keep the ryegrass alive, and then um eventually when the soil heats up in the spring, the the warm season roots will start to grow, the hybrid Bermuda or the Zoysia grass.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah, I've actually seen people put in winter rye to have these brilliant green grasses in January. And then I am assuming that that dies out then in the spring when it warms up here.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

You want to be careful because it won't die out if you plant perennial ryegrass. You want to plant annual ryegrass because that will that will naturally die out in uh May. And uh so um that's the better choice. And if you want to, you can. Every square foot of grass is overseeded. Uh but there they use perennial ryegrass uh because it gets so hot in the late spring, it will even kill out perennial ryegrass.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Yeah, that that that's that's interesting. So now once my lawn is established, it's time to mow. So, what is the ideal height for water usage and keeping my lawn healthy?

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Well, again, it depends on the species of grass that you have. Um and some grasses you can actually plant as kind of a meadow that you don't mow. Um the fine fescues, uh like hard fescue or sheets fescue, uh, make a really nice unmowed meadow. Those are cool season grasses. Um they they can't, if they are mowed, they won't do well in Orange County except in the shade. There's it's a shade, those are shade-tolerant grasses as well. Um Buffalo grass is a nice uh warm season grass that unmowed looks looks quite good. Uh so anyway, if you're interested in sort of a ground cover rather than a manicured lawn, you could uh you could go with with those grasses. Um typically the the homeowner lawn, the tall fescue, and the seeded Bermuda, you'd mow uh an inch and a half to two inches, and you can use a you know an inexpensive rotary mower, and it'll cut those just fine. Uh and so you mow typically once a week during the growing season is going to be enough to keep the grass um looking good. Uh mowing encourages um uh a little more density in the uh turf grass stand. Even if the grass doesn't have runners, tall fescue doesn't have runners, perennial ryegrass doesn't have runners, uh but uh mowing helps keep a dense uh cover. Uh Bermuda grasses have runners, so uh they'll they'll fill in a little more quickly if you if you mow them um about once a week. And I forgot to mention that Bermuda grass, you could mow uh you know an inch and a quarter, inch and a half. You can take a little shorter mowing.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

That can go shorter. So is it true the shorter I keep my grass, the more water I have to put on it to keep it green?

SPEAKER_02 36:04

No, it's actually the opposite. Uh because the the grass blades are where the water leaves the the turf grass plant, and so if you have real long grass blades, uh you have more surface area to evaporate water. Um the thing is that the turf grass may not be adapted to short mowing, especially in hot weather. So you may lose the grass while you're trying to save water. So it's better to kind of keep the grass at a at a higher cutting height.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

I have to find that happy medium. So when I'm mowing, is it a good idea to have my mower with the bag on it and to bag and remove my clippings or just leave it on the grass? What's the pros and cons of doing that?

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Yeah, if you if you do um leave the clippings, you gain uh a savings of maybe up to 30% in the amount of nitrogen fertilizer you have to put on the lawn per year. So that's an advantage. The disadvantage is that you you may have to mow more frequently so that the clippings aren't big mountains of uh grass blades. You have to mow often enough that they're short. And you can buy uh what's called a mulching mower that's that's designed, it has a blade that uh chops up the blade the clippings a little bit better so they fall into the uh turf canopy uh a little more readily. So, but you have to kind of watch your your mowing. You can't can't always get by with just once a week.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Okay. And you we already talked about no-mo lawns, and I think you touched a little bit about growing grass in shaded areas. Is there anything you could add about a species if I have a lot of trees on my property? For the best line?

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Yeah. Um the the more shape-tolerant grasses, I mentioned the fine fescues, hard fescue, and sheep's fescue. Um, I don't recommend creeping red fescue, which is also a fine fescue uh in Orange County, uh, because it's not as heat tolerant as the other two. Um and those are um they will grow in moderate shade, even mowed pretty well, but if you try and grow them mowed out in the sun, um they're gonna have a bit of a struggle in the Orange County climate. Um the uh Zoisia grass I mentioned is moderately shade tolerant. That's a um another one that's uh that's a warm season grass. Um St. Augustine is the most commonly used warm season grass for shade or sun. They both grow well in the sun, um, but none of them really grow well in real deep shade, partially because there's not enough light and partially because you know the tree roots compete with the grass.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

And uh they have a hard time. Also, if they're an older tree, the the surface roots are gonna wreck your lawn while they're trying to trying to mow under a big old tree. So I recommend um shade-tolerant ground covers or or just putting uh an attractive mulch under the deepest part of the shade under a tree.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Okay, that that's a good idea. And I might even want to look at the trees I choose for my yard to make sure that they have roots that go down instead of roots that go out if I want to use a lawn.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Um yeah, it's kind of if you're planting them in a lawn, it's gonna be tough to encourage the roots to go down because there's all that water right up the surface of lawn watering. Um but you're right, if you um some tree species are really notorious for having surface roots. Uh phycus is one that's real popular in Orange County, but would have a lot of surface roots that would interfere with mowing the lawn.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Okay. And occasionally I get an advertisement for aerating my lawn. Is this a good idea? So please tell us a little bit about turf aeration.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Well, um, if you are uh growing turf for sports like uh football, baseball, and elementary school play field, you get a lot of kids and adults stomping on it, uh putting a lot of traffic on that turf. And what that does is it compresses the soil underneath, which kind of closes off the ability for water and air to get down into the root zone. So um, you know, golf courses, football fields, they aerify two or more times a year to encourage better turf grass root growth, and uh homeowners usually don't need to do that. Um so I I've seen uh these people come into home lawns, and if it's a small lawn, their equipment uh it can't they can't turn it easily and they rip up a lot of grass. And uh unless the soil is compacted through a lot of foot traffic, or if you you know, if you park your cars on the lawn all the time, then you might want to uh think about getting those areas aerified.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

And the the services usually provide for fertilization too. So how often should I fertilize my lawn?

SPEAKER_02 42:19

It's a good question, but and it's kind of tough to answer that in a few words. Um if you if you have a grass that grows year-round, like tall fescue, um, you'd probably want to fertilize that every three three or four months, so three or four times a year. That's going to keep the tall fescue nice and green in the winter as well as the summer. Um if you have a grass like Bermuda grass that doesn't grow in the winter, then uh probably two times a year, early spring when it's just starting to come out of dormancy, and then um then maybe a half dose in the uh early summer, and if you feel like at the other half dose in the in the late summer, early fall, like September. And the total amount of nitrogen uh for most grasses is about four pounds of actual nitrogen per thousand square feet per year.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

So if you have a uh 20% nitrogen ammonium sulfate, that would be five pounds of ammonium sulfate uh four times a year.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Okay, and I I don't think that product can be pot anymore unless you're a commercial grower or in the industry for the homeowner.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Well, ammonium sulfate you can find uh you can find at farm supplies and it's it's not the explosive one you're thinking of.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

That's ammonium nitrate. All right, here we go. You can't you can't Find that or in uh in nurseries anymore.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

So liquid, organic, or liquid or granular, organic, or chemical, does it matter?

SPEAKER_02 44:12

It doesn't matter to the turf brass, no. Uh it might matter to you. Uh it's a couple of things you have to consider when you're putting on fertilizer. You you want to put it on evenly. Um if you miss an area, uh that area is gonna turn yellow because it doesn't have enough nitrogen. So you have to be careful about that. Um the organic materials take a long time to break down, and for that reason, um they're they're not real practical because they, as I mentioned earlier, you have to put on a lot of uh of steer manure to adequately provide nitrogen for for a crop like turf grass and that requires a lot of nitrogen. Um liquid ones uh are expensive usually. Uh lawn care companies that are like uh Chemlon, uh they specialize in liquid applications and they know how to do it well and evenly. Um I don't generally recommend it for for homeowners. Um and and the uh the only organic one that's pretty popular in even on golf courses is called millorganite, um, and it's primarily sewage sludge from the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Um it doesn't have a bad odor, um, and it has enough nitrogen uh I forget what what the exact amount is, but you know, it's a pot if you're really into organic lawn fertilization, that would be a good choice.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

But then I don't know if I want to run barefoot after I've put that down on my lawn.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Well, it is it is highly uh it's highly processed, so it's it's pretty safe, I think. I wouldn't put it on my vegetable garden.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

So our lawns get weeds, and I know this is a big topic, but could you tell us a little about weed prevention as well as removal?

SPEAKER_02 46:28

Yeah. Um prevention is is really the key here. Um I show my turf grass classes uh a slide that um is actually from our research station where we planted variety trials of tall fescue and then right next to it perennial ryegrasses. And um again we planted those in the the cooler months of of uh the spring. And when they matured, I I've got a picture that shows kind of a line where they where the two grass species meet. The perennial ryegrass has no weeds in it. The tall fescue varieties uh are full of annual bluegrass, a grassy weed that comes up very quickly. Um and and it the reason is it takes at least 10 days for the tall fescue to germinate and start to grow. Perennial ryegrass, planted at the exact perfect timing, uh will will be up in five days, so it outcompetes the weeds. Um with uh zoisia grass seed. Zoisiagrass seed is very slow, uh, and it would take uh you know three three to four weeks to start to fill in a little bit, and the weeds have taken over by end. So some kind of weed pre-plant weed prevention like getting rid of weeds and uh hoping you don't have a lot of seeds is really helpful. It's pretty tough for homeowners to have um to put weed control herbicide or herbicides, pesticides that's are specially designed for weed killing on a new lawn. So you pretty much have to um hand weed, um, and then uh once it's established, you could put on herbicides if you want to. Um but but the the thing is if you can if you plant sod, it always comes as pretty much weed-free, and the key is to maintain that really strong and vigorous so you don't get weeds coming in.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

So you're saying that that you if your lawn is vigorous, it'll outcompete the weeds, and when your lawn gets stressed, then you're gonna get the weed growth.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

Much more likely, right. Okay. Um, so it's really important to especially maintain a good fertilization program.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Yeah, fertilization, water, and just uh and it's just it's something that uh you have to monitor. You just can't let go and assume that your lawn's gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

And then finally, you know, the other thing that we've left out that we need to talk about are the pests. And so lawns do get pests, and what are some of the common pests that might plague a lawn in Orange County?

SPEAKER_02 49:42

Well, actually, we've already talked about it. It's weeds. Weeds are by far the the biggest uh pest problem in lawns. Although there are um diseases and insects, they're really fairly fairly minor and rare if uh if people take even moderately good care of their lawn. So um we're pretty lucky that we don't have a lot of insect pests or or diseases. Um I've seen diseases uh happen where people actually bring on the disease by mismanagement. Umfescue, once it's established, uh, doesn't need watering twice a day. But I've seen where people have done that, that's encouraged a fungal disease where it's it's just unheard of if people are you know watering an established tolfescue on three times a week. But if they're watering it every day or twice a day, they're going to make the conditions ideal for diseases. Uh insects, not so much insects, uh they're pretty rare. At least they're not a uh uh problem um where they're actually killing the lawn. They might be in there eating a little bit, but it's not it's not real common that they're gonna be a problem. The only exception is with um St. Augustine lawns. They um have an inherent insect called the chinch bug that uh feeds on the the stems, the the above-ground runners, and it will kill Saint Augustine. St. Augustine looks like it's really tough, but it's really a pretty weak grass. So um that if you have St. Augustine, you really need to watch out for chinch bug by pawing through the grass canopy and looking for these little um bugs that are maybe uh half an inch long crawling along the runners. Uh and you really need to take care of them because once once they kill the St. Augustine, it won't come back uh very readily.

SPEAKER_00 52:10

Okay, so that that's kind of a common thing, and that may be why St. Augustine, especially in the summertime, because I know it does get kind of brown in the winter, which is one of the disadvantages of it. But if it's brown in the summer, that might be another sign that you're looking for.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

Right. It's um actually uh I've I've done trials in the 70s with varieties of St. Augustine that were bred in Florida, where it's real popular, and we found some that were pretty resistant to the chinch bug, and uh the sod company in Camarillo, Pacific Sod, um, actually bought that variety and they still produce it, I believe. So it'd be good to make sure you've got a chinch bug resistant, St. Augustine, if you're interested in that grass.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

And then and then don't overwater because the grass does need to not totally dry out, but you don't want standing water on it. And you want to give a chance for those funguses to not take over.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Not catch hold, right. You don't uh you don't want to make the environment better for the fungus than it is for the turf grass.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

And then what about clover, which I know is a pest and it has those long-running root systems, it really takes over. Is there a method for preventing that or getting rid of it?

SPEAKER_02 53:39

Well, first of all, clover uh is a common indicator that the lawn isn't getting fertilized with nitrogen properly.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 53:50

So um when I go out to school fields in Orange County, when I see big patches of clover, I know they're not fertilizing it adequately. Um clover is not the easiest broadleaf wheat you get rid of, but there are um there are herbicides that will get rid of it, and um you can find uh herbicides in uh nurseries that will will do a fairly good job. The best thing to do if you do have clover is to get on the uh the UC Davis IPM website and look up the uh recommendations for controlling clover, because that will have the up-to-date herbicide active ingredient recommendation. So if you Google uh ipm.ucdavis.edu, you'll get to that site and look for test notes because that's the the publications that are geared to the homeowner, and it will have information that a homeowner can you know follow and find uh the products in their local nursery.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

And then in addition, I can increase my fertilizer with nitrogen to at the same time to make sure that my grass comes up and outcompetes the clover grass.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Yeah, well, once it's there, it's not gonna outcompete it, so you've got to kill it some way. Kill it, so I'm gonna do both. And then increase the uh the nitrogen um frequency. Uh, and you know, just match the nitrogen amount, the total amount per per year, but don't just put it all on once or twice. Try and split it up so it's getting nitrogen all through the growing season for that grass.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

That sounds awesome. It's believed that lawns were first deliberately cultivated around English and French castles in the 16th century. The lawnmower, invented by Edwin Budding, goes back to 1830. Gardeners have been growing lawn in their gardens for many years, and it has been a pleasure talking with you today, Mike. And we've learned an awful lot. The opinions expressed on this show are not necessarily those of the station, the university, or the UC Board of Regents. For more information on this show, visit kuci.org.