2022’s Cities Where Lawns Go to Die

How can homeowners who are dealing with a water ban maintain a nice-looking lawn throughout extreme heat and drought conditions?

1. Select aesthetic lawn species that are drought-resistant and low water users, such as hybrid Bermudagrass, where it is available.
2. Select cultivars of that species that are especially drought-resistant and low water users.
3. Allow the grass to become drought-stressed in the spring to the point where it appears stressed, and then irrigate (if water is available) so that the water reaches the depth of roots (dig down to see). Repeat this once.
4. If limited water is available, irrigate deeply to the depth of rooting and infrequently according to evapotranspiration water losses (this can be weeks apart in spring or fall and 2-7 days apart in the summer.
5. Properly install and maintain the sprinkler system to provide maximum water distribution uniformity (fix leaks, proper heads and nozzles, sprinkler head to sprinkler head coverage, upright sprinkler heads, trim plants, and remove objects that are in the way of the water stream, proper pressure).
6. Replace antiquated irrigation controllers with a Smart Irrigation Controller, which is surprisingly affordable and often can be subsidized by cities, HOAs, etc.
7. Fertilizer properly with an adequate, not excessive amount, of nitrogen season-long (especially during the fall), and apply the other nutrients based on a soil test.
8. Mow at the proper height for the species of the lawn (mowing too short results in short roots).
9. Water in the mornings if possible (wind increases later in the day, and watering at night prevents identifying problems, as well as increases the likelihood of disease).

What is the best way for homeowners to prevent wasting water outside?

Grass is good, but minimize it when possible. Plants are important for many, many reasons (aesthetics, property values, cooling of the environment, generating oxygen, mental and physical health, etc.), but having a diverse landscape is best for many reasons.

Grass tends to require more water than most other types of plants. Mulched beds with water-conserving plant species are beautiful and can be low maintenance if done properly. These can get by with little or no water.

Plant enough grass to have an aesthetic landscape that is also functional, but look for ways to reduce the percentage of grass in the landscape (and this is coming from the “grass guy at BYU.”

Yes, I love grass. I teach about grass. I would hate a world that didn’t have some grass to play and walk on, but most landscapes I consult on and observe can dramatically reduce the percentage of grass with no or minimal lost benefits.

I can typically reduce water consumption by 80-90% in the landscape and still have a gorgeous property with excellent property value.

What is your best tip for distinguishing lawn damage caused by pests or disease from drought damage?

Drought-stressed grass is easily identified as it has a dark green or gray hue to it and doesn’t bounce back upright when stepped on. If the grass is dead, it is often too late to be able to confidently determine the reason for the necrosis, although patterns in the grass can be helpful.

For example, dead grass that follows sprinkler patterns is often related to drought stress in irrigated lawns. Also, check areas where the soil would reasonably dry out sooner (such as tops of hills, south-facing slopes, or next to concrete and other hardscape surfaces).

Disease damage can often be identified by patterns as well, such as distinctive rings for some pathogen damage. Insect damage can be distinctive, such as those that eat the root or crowns can result in the sod being able to be lifted up like a carpet.

Checking the soil moisture is also helpful. This can be done qualitatively by simply feeling the soil from a shovel or soil probe, or more quantitatively by using a soil moisture meter (often, diseased grass looks like it is dry, but there is plenty of moisture in the soil).

How can homeowners who are dealing with a water ban maintain a nice-looking lawn throughout extreme heat and drought conditions?

Since water is the most limiting factor during a drought, use it judiciously (see below for tips to prevent water wastage). Set higher mowing heights (3-4 inches), which holds moisture better and results in deeper root system. Avoid excess N fertilizers, this can burn an already stressed lawn. Reschedule all fertilizer applications to when temperatures cool down (mid-late Sept).

What is the best way for homeowners to prevent wasting water outside?

Monitor your irrigation system every day, to make sure that sprinklers are working, and most important – targeting the lawn and not the roads, sidewalks and other areas. Check for leaks in irrigation tubes, and avoid water pooling in the lawn or outside. Water during early morning, this results in minimal loss to evaporation and maximum retention in the lawn.

What is your best tip for distinguishing lawn damage caused by pests or disease from drought damage?

Change in color. Drought-affected turf shows gradual change in color (from green to dark green, then brown), and large areas are uniformly affected. Pest and disease symptoms usually start in one or more spots and spread from there. Disease affected turf turns yellow, then brown. Damage by pests may be seen as bare patches with complete loss of green (e.g., armyworms), or pale yellow followed by brown when roots are damaged (white grubs).

How can homeowners who are dealing with a water ban maintain a nice-looking lawn throughout extreme heat and drought conditions?

Infrequent but deep watering is a good approach to using less water and also promotes root growth which makes the grass more tolerant to drought. Also, watering early in the morning is recommended to avoid water evaporation.

Keeping the mowing height higher helps the root system grow deeper and access water in the deeper layers of soil. Make sure the mower blades are sharp so the grass heals faster in drought conditions.

Excessive fertilizer would not help to make the grass look better. It might promote growth in the beginning, but the new grass is more susceptible to drought and dies faster. It is better to wait till early fall for fertilization.

Use drought-resistant cultivars when establishing a new lawn or if you want to renew some areas. You can consult with your home lawn care specialist or university experts to find out the best drought-resistant cultivar that is available in your region.

Also, be aware that cool-season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass and fescues become dormant during heat and drought stress. Dormant grass looks brownish in color, but the root system is alive, and the grass will resume growing when the stress situation is gone. Only a very severe drought kills the grass.

What is the best way for homeowners to prevent wasting water outside?

It is good to know the estimated water requirement for the type of turf you have and for your region. This helps to avoid excessive watering, which not only results in wasting water but promotes diseases.

Monitoring weather conditions helps to avoid unnecessary irrigation. For example, if there is a rain event, then the turf needs less water in the next irrigation, or if the weather forecasts show a drop in temperature for a few days, you might be able to postpone the irrigation or irrigate with less water.

As it was mentioned before, drought-resistant cultivars are a great option for saving water as their water requirements are lower.

What is your best tip for distinguishing lawn damage caused by pests or diseases from drought damage?

One way to distinguish drought from disease is to monitor weather conditions. Drought happens when temperatures are high and precipitation is low, while most diseases are favored by humidity and prolonged leaf wetness, either under cool or warm weather conditions, depending on the disease.

With foliar turfgrass diseases (those that affect the above-ground parts of the grass), you normally see yellow-brown, purplish, or tan color lesions or blighting, while with drought stress, there would not be any localized discoloration on the leaf blades.

Identification of the root diseases is harder as the general above-ground symptoms are similar to other abiotic stress factors. You might be able to see discoloration and darkening in root and/or crown areas if a root pathogen is present, a hand lens would be helpful to see the darkening.

In the bigger picture, turf diseases normally appear in patterns like patches, spots, or areas that have poor drainage. On the other hand, drought-stressed grass is more susceptible to traffic, and you would see discolored grass from wheel tracks or footprints. When drought symptoms progress, the whole leaf blade starts to turn yellow-brown in color.

Getting familiar with the common diseases in your region and the time of year they occur can help to identify diseases. Being familiar with the signs and symptoms of common turfgrass diseases is necessary to distinguish them from drought stress.

Some diseases have unique characteristics, or you might be able to see the pathogen structures growing on the grass and therefore identify the disease. University Extensions have educational classes that you could attend and learn about problematic diseases in your region.

Lastly, if you are not sure if it is a disease or abiotic stress, the best way is to send samples to plant diagnostic labs or consult with an expert.

How can homeowners who are dealing with a water ban maintain a nice-looking lawn throughout extreme heat and drought conditions?

That is a great question. Texas is well known for its heat and drought during the summer months, with high temperatures in the upper nineties and triple digits with no rain for 80 to 90 consecutive days.

Warm-season turfgrasses are the most dominant turfgrasses in the state of Texas, and these turfgrasses turn dormant during drought-stress conditions. It is a normal mechanism warm-season turfgrasses have developed to protect themselves and to thrive in seasons such as summer (drought and heat) and winter (cold temperatures).

That means the plant is still “alive” but slows metabolic activity for a period of time in order to conserve resources and energy until conditions become more favorable. Keeping a lawn green out here is not only difficult once watering is restricted beyond one day per week. However, our turfgrass breeders are developing improved cultivars that can tolerate much more extreme drought.

The best way to deal with this situation is to prepare or acclimate your lawn heading into summer drought by following research-based best cultural practices such as proper mowing height, fertilization, irrigation, and pest management during spring, late summer, and early fall when it is our rainy season, as well as the when temperatures are cool.

Following good cultural practices will help mitigate damage under heat, drought, and water restrictions during the Texan’s hot summer. Also, planting more drought-tolerant species and cultivars with excellent drought-resistance attributes will aid in allowing grasses to persist through these conditions.

What is the best way for homeowners to prevent wasting water outside?

There are a few steps that a homeowner needs to consider to prevent wasting water.

1. Use warm-season turfgrass species or cultivars that best tolerate drought
2. It is recommended for homeowners to mow at the highest mowing height that is determined by their turfgrass species or cultivar and follow the 1/3 rule mowing frequency.
3. Audit your irrigation system, checking uniformity and water volume.
4. Maintain the irrigation system in good condition, fixing leaks, sprinkler head direction, and adjusting irrigation schedules according to the season.
5. Do not irrigate during or following rain events or in the middle of the day. It is highly recommended to irrigate early morning, around 5 or 6 a.m. Cycle soaking also will help reduce runoff.
6. Finally, do not irrigate beyond the turf requirement (60% of reference ET) to avoid wasting water.

What is your best tip for distinguishing lawn damage caused by pests or disease from drought damage?

Most turfgrass fungal diseases thrive with high relative humidity, prolonged leaf wetness, and excess soil moisture, so it is not common to see turfgrass diseases during the dry summer in Texas with high day and night temperatures, drought conditions (low relative humidity and dry soils), and implemented water restrictions.

It is almost impossible to have diseases under these unfavorable conditions during this summer in Texas. Chinch bug damage is common in St. Augustinegrass during late summer, often showing up after watering drought-stressed turf, with no green-up observed.

Submitting a soil or turf sample from areas of concern to a reputable disease diagnostic lab is the only way to confirm disease with high certainty.

There are many reasons why people should have a healthy lawn vs. having bare soil, rock yards, or imitation yards:

• Grasses provide a healthy soil with populations of beneficial organisms, transforming dead plants and materials into humus and organic matter, helping them become some of the most fertile in the world.
• Lawns filter pollutants by binding them and allowing microorganisms to break them down.
• Lawns’ thick root systems reduce erosion and lessen the loss of our valuable topsoils.
• Grasses planted along roads can reduce noise levels by 40 percent vs. pavement.
• Lawns are natural air conditioners. Through evapotranspiration, lawns are 30 percent cooler than asphalt.
• Lawns provide better human well-being than concrete and asphalt.
• Lawns absorb CO₂. Through this process, a 2,500 sq ft lawn provides enough oxygen in a year for a family of four.

So, if we lose our lawns, we lose more than just a few blades of grass.

Now, back to those questions.

How can homeowners who are dealing with a water ban maintain a nice-looking lawn throughout extreme heat and drought conditions?

1.Have the best turfgrasses possible

One of the very best ways to ensure a healthy lawn during drought conditions is to make sure you are using the most drought-resistant types of turfgrass possible. There are a number of them that can be useful in southern California. Here is a list of the best and their rankings:

Superior

• common Bermudagrass
• Hybrid Bermudagrass
• Buffalograss

Excellent

• seashore paspalum
• Zoysiagrass

Good

• St. Augustinegrass
• Kikuyugrass

These grasses survive best under suppressed and restricted irrigation situations. So, your first order of business would be to find out what kind of grass (or grasses) you have in your yard. If you are unsure, take photos or samples and check with your local lawn expert or extension specialist. They can help you ID your grasses and provide you with management help.

What is the best way for homeowners to prevent wasting water outside?

Be as smart and diligent about your watering practices as possible. Ideally, you want to apply the correct amount of water at the correct time to help optimize water uptake by your plants.

Evaluate how you are watering. It will be important to visually and physically evaluate how all of your watering practices apply water. Whether you are using an automated irrigation system or a hose with a sprinkler (or sprinklers), take time to visually see how it is applying water and measure how much water is being applied.

Measuring water can be done easily with six to ten tuna or pet food cans. Wherever your sprinkler(s) are operating, evenly space your cans in the area and run them for at least 10 minutes. When you are done, compare how much water is in each can to help you find your weakest (driest) spots.

Once you find those dry spots, you can investigate why. Is the sprinkler clogged, too low, or being blocked by something? Is there a broken sprinkler or pipe somewhere limiting (and wasting) water?

The tuna-can method can also help you determine how much water you are applying. If you have a ruler or tape measure, stick either in the can and directly measure how much water is applied in 10 minutes. Multiply it by six and you know how much is being applied in an hour.

Example: if you have 1/8 inch of water in the can, multiply by six and you get 6/8 inch or ¾ of an inch of water. If your lawn requires 1 inch of water per week, you know you need to run your sprinklers a little more than an hour to meet that need. Fortunately, you do not need to run it all at once. If you need 1 hour of water, simply run your sprinklers for 20 minutes, three times. This will limit any waste to runoff or make things too mushy.

Know your grass management strategies during drought. During droughty times it is important to cut back on watering yet minimize damage to your grasses. What we can often try to do is conduct “deficit irrigation.” This means cutting back to the bare minimum but still maintaining a pretty healthy lawn.

Fortunately, the grasses listed above will reduce their water uptake as soil moisture levels drop. Deficit irrigation would involve cutting your water applications to about half of their normal rates. If you were applying one inch per week, work on cutting your rates to ½ inch per week (30 minutes total instead of 60 minutes). This may mean splitting those applications to two 15-minute applications per week.

It is also important to water late at night or early in the morning. Less water will be lost to evaporation and to wind drift. Try to avoid when all of your neighbors are taking showers, washing dishes and flushing toilets, etc. to maximize water pressure and application efficiency.

Mowing also plays an important role. At these times, try to mow your lawns at the tallest allowable height (tall enough where they don’t start falling and rolling over) yet still frequently enough that you are not cutting more than one-third of the plant off. So, don’t stop mowing your grasses, keep them trimmed, and they will use less water than unmowed grasses.

When high temperatures start to ease, consider applying a half rate of fertilizer to help feed your plants. They were working pretty hard and will probably be a little hungry.

What is your best tip for distinguishing lawn damage caused by pests or disease from drought damage?

This is where it is important to get down and close with your plants. One of the first things you can do is to look closely at the base of the plant (what we call the crown). On your hands and knees, go to the stressed areas and look for green coloring at the very base.

If you see some green at the crown, it tells you that the plant is still viable and is just resting (dormant) and waiting for better conditions to start actively growing again. Also, if your grasses are tan in color, they are most likely dormant. If they are gray in color, they may be lost and likely not be coming back.

If you are still unsure, take a generous handful of the grass and tug on it. If it pulls up easily, you may have an insect problem. Pull back a bit more of the grass and look to see if you have any grubs. They like munching on the roots and shoots just below the canopy and thatch and will weaken the plants stability.

If you don’t see any grubs, take a look at the roots. If the roots are white, they are still healthy and viable and will likely come back with better growing conditions. If they are brown, they are not doing very well and may be affected by a disease.

If you are still unsure, smell the sample you pulled up, if it smells earthy and like normal soil, it is doing ok, but if it smells like rotten eggs or some other rotting kind of thing, you are likely having a disease problem or something else causing your grasses to die an arduous death.

In any case, please contact your local extension office or turfgrass professional for help or guidance. None of us have to deal with these things on our own. You are also fortunate to have a marvelous publication available to you. It is titled: Managing Turfgrasses during Drought. Published by The University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Publication 8395. It is a wonderful read and is loaded with fantastic information. The turfgrass drought tolerance rankings came from this publication.

Remember, we’re better off with our turfgrasses than without. Wishing you all the best!

How can homeowners who are dealing with a water ban maintain a nice-looking lawn throughout extreme heat and drought conditions?

The best-case scenario is to plan ahead. Selecting the right grass for the right location is the appropriate foundation to build upon. If your lawn is in an area that is susceptible to water restrictions, then you should choose a grass that is drought tolerant. The National Turfgrass Evaluation Program (https://www.ntep.org/) is a great resource to get information on grass species and varieties and their specific tolerances. With the right foundation, then the homeowner can build on that during times of high heat and drought.

What is the best way for homeowners to prevent wasting water outside?

There are many strategies that a homeowner can use to avoid wasting water, but still have a nice lawn. One pillar to build off of your foundation of selecting the correct grass is infrequent deep waterings. This will encourage a deeper root system for the grass. Another pillar is to make sure that your irrigation system is covering the correct area. This is known as an irrigation audit. There are companies that can do an audit for you. However, you can start yourself by observing your sprinkler patterns, make sure you are not watering driveways, sidewalks, or other areas you do not intent to be watering. You can also place plastic cups in a grid pattern across the yard to catch the water and observe areas that need adjusted. And yet another pillar to build off of on the foundation of the correct grass is to use sensors such as soil moisture sensors and/or rain sensors to make an irrigation system more efficient. And a final pillar that is important is to design your landscape for water conservation and adjust your expectations of what the “ideal” lawn should look like.

What is your best tip for distinguishing lawn damage caused by pests or disease from drought damage?

When looking to distinguish damage from pests or diseases from drought damage, it is important to look at both the big picture and the little picture. For the big picture, look at the overall look of the damage and the symptoms. If the damage is very uniform, it is much more likely to be caused by an abiotic (non-living) stimuli like drought, than if the patterns are not uniform. For the little picture, it is good to get a close look at the damaged plants. Do you see any spots, discoloration, chewed spots, etc.? Do you see any insects in the lawn? If you are still questioning the cause, ask an expert. You can reach out to a lawn care professional or to your local Cooperative Extension Office.