Tips for lawns in Southern Arizona

Let me start by saying, in my opinion, that the best lawn you can have in our climate is an artificial turf lawn. The products on the market are truly amazing and very realistic. We use Southwest Greens (www.southwestgreens.com) for our artificial turf installation and they do a dynamite job!

However, I understand that for many Tucsonans having a yard without a lawn seems crazy. So for those of you just can’t live without grass please know that grass in Tucson acts much differently than grass in Peoria, Illinois.

1.)    If you want green grass all year, you will need two lawns. Not two physical lawns, but two layers of seeding, and this will need to be tended to annually.  This means, at the end of every summer, when the weather is beginning to cool off (think early October), you need to over-seed your lawn with Rye. The over-seeding process will give you a winter Rye lawn which will transition to a Bermuda Grass lawn in the summer. The Rye will die in the summer while the Bermuda is flourishing, because it dies it requires annual over-seeding in the fall. The Bermuda, however, only goes dormant in the winter, so it does not need re-seeding each year.

2.)    WATER! Lawns need more water than Tucson’s native droughts tolerate plants, period. Water deeply and long enough to move water to a depth of 8 to 10 inches into the soil. The best time to water is in the cool morning hours (before 5 am). Your irrigation should be installed to get head to head coverage on all your spray heads.  There are several resources online that can help direct you how to program your irrigation the right way in our climate.

3.)    Mowing: Appropriate mowing height is very important. Avoid scalping your lawn. Grass that is too short requires more water. A scalped Rye lawn can easily burn. You won’t see green again until your Bermuda comes in. A lawn that is left too long can restrict your sprayers and pop-ups disrupting your water coverage. This can result in brown patches and uneven growing patterns.

It won’t be easy, but with the appropriate TLC you can have a thriving lawn in Southern Arizona. Good luck!

If the work seems like too much, but you still can’t live without a grass lawn. Sonoran Gardens offers a variety of services to help out.

• Custom Care packages include weekly mowing and monitoring of the irrigation.
• Quarterly Service Contracts are great for those of you who enjoy mowing and edging your own lawn (you know who you are!).  With this, our Service Technician will adjust and clean your irrigation parts and controller to make sure it is working optimally and you are getting appropriate coverage for the season.
• Over-seeding can be performed by our team in the fall, preparing your lawn for the year ahead.

Call today 520-279-9411 for all the details on our Sonoran Gardens’ maintenance plans.