My lawn is in dire need of a do-over but it is absolutely pointless with the water restrictions. I’m better off just over-seeding each year and letting it die each summer.

There must be a balance, somewhere. I don’t have an answer, but I wish I did In the last 2-3 years, I have not put one drop of water in my lawn and it looks sad… Some day I will take action, but not any time soon.

How many southerners have died from mowing their green carpets on hot summer days? Hows about planting something REAL, like native plants, instead of draping your property with a bland green blanket. Conserve water, provide habitat and resources for wildlife, and make your property look inspiring and thoughtful instead of homogenous and boring. For folks who enjoy green so much, the ARMY wants YOU! Leave our water in the streams and reservoirs where it is needed.

Dana,

I have read the NC turf files. While I agree it is difficult to establish a lawn without frequen watering in early September I find your article has spun that into something it is not. You wrtie as if everyone has the same type of grass and everyone needs to establish a lawn at the exact same time. If you have fescue then you do need reseed in the fall. Even so, some people don’t even reseed fescue every fall but their lawn still looks great beacuse they have decent shade in their yard area.

If you have bermuda, zoysia, centiped grass or some other warm season grass you do not establish it in the fall. Those warm season grasses are usually established through the use of sod or “plugs” in the spring. This is outlined on the Turf Files website too. If you want to establish this grass under your appraoch you would need to ask the city to loosen restriction outside the 2-3 week period in the fall and have a similar loosening again in the spring right before the summer months when we are most likely to slip into drought conditions.

Then what do you say to the people who were on vacation during those 2-3 weeks in the fall or summer? Or maybe they moved to Raleigh or closed on their new construction house outside of those 2-3 periods. They would all be looking for waivers so they could water their lawn too. Once you open the door to exceptions to the restrictions you would have a lot of trouble making everyone happy. It isn’t as simple as you make it out to be. This isn’t about people being for or against healthy lawns, it is about ensuring we have enough water to drink.

The problem I have is that the recommendation includes fertilizing and then heavy watering. Our streams and rivers are polluted enough. I think we could use more trees (truly deep roots) and less lawn.

TSnow27604 – yeah, be sure to move dt, next to cc’s @ 3am and randars roaming the parking lots, watch two sketchers walk behind a dumpster in your parking lot and wait an hour before the cops that you called come to check it out, but before they show up, the two lovely guys walk out from behind the dumpster with smiles galore …good times!

sorry, tried to be “PC” with it. look up CC’s club and condos close to it in dt raleigh and you should understand the rest.

Dana,

You have an interesting way of twisting things. My point about not everyone reseeding in the fall is because not everyone has fescue which should be reseeded in the fall. I’m not suggesting you reseed fescue in the spring, of course that would be bad.

I don’t understand your comment about people only needing 2.33 hours to water their lawns. Are you assuming everyone has in ground automatic sprinklers? Well they don’t. If you have the old fashioned sprinkler you hook up to the hose you can only water one zone of your yard at a time and need to move it from zone to zone to get full coverage. This could take varying amounts of time based on how large or small your yard is. How you have determined this should take everybody 2.33 hours is beyond me.

You might also want to consider that Raleigh affords 16 hours for watering not as a means for you to go “Hog Wild” with watering for 16 hours straight, but to allow people with varying work schedules to find an opportunity during that 16 hour window to water their lawn. Maybe you work until 9pm at night or maybe your work weekends. Of course it is best to water at the coolest point of the day, but allowing a large window for watering on at least two different days during the week (including at least one weekend day) is the only way to ensure that the majority of residents who want to water responsibly will have the opportunity to do so.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the spirit of your posts about lawns, but your tendency to over simplify and find fault where there is none is slightly demonstrates a level of ignorance to challenges of municipal planning.

~ HW

I’m not flaming you. I’m just disagreeing with you. I was wrong about the bermuda, but Spring is the time for Zoysia and centipede establishment.

I still don’t get the 2.33 hour idea. Maybe some people can keep their seeds wet with 10 minutes of watering, but that assumes everyone has the same limited amount of yard area. Clearly that is not the case. While it is true a lot of people have small lots, not everyone does and some people would need way more time than 10 minutes to cover their entire lawn.

I don’t understand the point you are making about car washes. Sorry.

Again, not a flame and while I admit to my error about seeding bermuda in the fall I still do think you don’t have a full understanding of the issues at play here. Things aren’t as black and white as you try to make them out to be.

~ HW

FWIW with regards to your Bemuda Grass comments. I believe you are quoting the directions given from the section that discusses Bermuda grass use on athletic fields. I don’t kow about you but I don’t live in the middle of a football field. You need to read the Lawn Maintenance Calendar for Bermuda Grass:

http://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/Maintenance_Calendars.aspx#000016

For BERMUDA GRASS it clearly states under the March – May Maintenance Section:

“Replant large bare areas using sod or sprigs (3 to 5 bushels per thousand square feet). Common bermudagrass can be seeded using hulled bermudagrass at 1 to 2 pounds per thousand square feet.”

It makes no mention of reseeding in the September – November Maintenance section. That is because homeowners do not rennovate bermuda lawns in the fall. I don’t know why they do for Athletic Fields like you pointed out.

Talk to Dr. Arthur H. Bruneau at NCSU to find out why these two maintenance calendars for Bermuda differ if you want to get to the bottom of that one!

Dana,

I agree with your last post about it being hard to get good germination under the current restrictions. The purpose of my posts was just to point out that germination and deep healthy root systems occur at different times via different water methods.

Raleigh should also consider adopting an incentive program simialr to Cary’s “Turf Buy Back Program” where they reward homeowners and builders by paying them or reducing their impact fees if they eliminate their use fescue lawns and instead grow drought tolerant lawns comprised of warm season grasses like bermuda or zoysia.

Cary’s Turf Buy back program info:
http://www.townofcary.org/depts/pwdept/water/waterconservation/incentiveprograms/turfbuybackprogramguidelines.htm

I think it would also be wise for people to get a better handle on how and when to properly fertilize their lawns. A lot of residents over fertilize or apply it in such a way that a lot of the granules end up on theri driveway or sidewalk only to be wasked into the stormwater drain and into the neuse river. High nutrients in the Neuse lead to algae blooms in the Estuary, low dissolved oxygen and ultimately fish kills. Residential landscaping is only one of the factors in this issue but it is a big contributor. Thankfully the NC extension office does outreach and public education on this, but there are still a lot of uninformed homeowners out there.

Here to a wet fall!

~ HW

Just read “Carolina Lawns” from cover to cover; it’s all there in simple, specific directions. There’s no need for bickering over word choice. Dana tried to make a good point and to help readers achieve healthy lawns. For that, Dana, thank you. Most homeowners don’t follow best practices, and that’s why they have so much trouble keeping fescue healthy year-round. It’s not “rocket science”, but there definitely are rules to follow.

As for the number of minutes it takes for each seed to absorb enough water to remain moist enough to germinate, it depends on the amount of sun on a specific day, the humidity that day, the output of the sprinkler head used (whether it’s a built-in sprinkler or a hose-end sprinkler), the time of day you water, and even the minerals in the water used. I think that, on an average, 10 minutes a day in a given area is a good guess for absorption.

One trick that defies the rule of watering grass in the early morning hours, is to water reseeded lawns in the late afternoon for about 2 weeks. This allows the seeds to remain thoroughly moist throughout the night hours and into the next day, until the sun gets hot enough to start drying them out. Of course, in the hot, humid summer, that’s a HUGE no-no because it encourages fungus-type diseases.

Another suggestion (which sort of defies the advice given in “Carolina Lawns”) is, in the Raleigh area, wait a little later into September to reseed. Remember that “Carolina Lawns” is published for the entire state of NC. I like to reseed about Sept. 15-20, depending on the heat we’re experiencing. We can have some pretty intense sun and very warm days in early September. Also, September can be a very wet month too, depending on the hurricane activity we see.

Don’t overwater! It’s possible to rot the seeds and not get any germination at all! If we do get heavy rains from a hurricane after you have reseeded, you might need to put down more seeds since the first batch might drown or be washed away. Use your judgment here, depending on your specific location and the amount of slope on your lawn.

HW, if you question the details discussed here, why don’t you call the Master Gardener helpline. They’re there to answer any questions you have.

I’m glad this has come up in August so people will have time to read “Carolina Lawns” and, hopefully, get better results with their lawns.

“HW, if you question the details discussed here, why don’t you call the Master Gardener helpline. They’re there to answer any questions you have.”

I don’t question the Turf Files. I question how some like Dana misinterpret them.

~ HW

The details discussed here come straight from the Turf File Documents. So as before, I don’t question the validity of the facts as laid out in the Turf Files and discussed here. I question how some people misinterpret them. I will leave out the (!).