We understand nobody wants to drag out the hose in the winter to water flowers and shrubs and grass.  But we strongly recommend watering anything you can water.   The fescue needs it, the pansies need it, the trees and shrubs need it.  Even the roots of your dormant Bermuda need it!  Not only does your yard need water year-round, water also provides insulation against cold temperatures for your plants and grass.  Our dryness wouldn’t be nearly as big an issue had we not had drought conditions for 2 years now.  The plants can only take so much before they just croak!  (I lost a huge dawn redwood last year due to drought and heat.)

What else is there to do when it comes to lawn care in the winter?

Keep leaves off your fescue

Fescue doesn’t look so hot right now, with the cold snaps we’ve been having.  But it’s actively soaking up sunlight and making food for itself which will keep it going through the summer when the leaves are back on the trees and it’s in the shade again, and the temperatures are soaring.  Fescue is heat-intolerant, not sun-intolerant, which is why we plant it in the shade here in the Tulsa area.  If fescue is covered in leaves right now, it can’t get sunlight, it can’t make food for itself, and it will suffer when the heat comes.  If you can’t pick them up, blow them off.  And don’t mow over the leaves and mulch them into your fescue.  It’s fine to do that on the bermuda grass, but the fescue needs sunlight!  And if your fescue perks up, don’t mow it short – it needs all the leaf surface it can get right now for photosythesis.

Spray difficult grassy weeds in your dormant bermuda grass with RoundUp

 or another product containing glyphosate.  BEWARE:  you can only use glyphosate in dormant bermuda grass – DO NOT spray it in fescue.  And you can only use glyphosate in dormant bermuda grass if it’s really really dormant.  Check out the grass down at the base, near the soil.  It should be brown all the way down.  We’ve seen some cases where the bermuda has been sheltered, like under a massive pile of leaves, and it’s still a little green.  If you see ANY green, don’t spray glyphosate on it.  Glyphosate will kill almost anything that is actively growing, including your grass.

 

But if you have fescue clumps or other green grasses in your brown and dormant bermuda, this is a great time to treat them.  If you’re a GreenGrass customer, we will be taking care of this for you when we do your first application.

 

When should you put down a crabgrass pre-emergent?

 We start putting down the first crabgrass pre-emergent application as soon as possible in January.  Luckily, we have a large window to get this done, because we’re usually hampered by bad weather.  We can’t spray the applications in rain, snow, freezing temperatures or high winds.  Note: If you are doing your own crabgrass pre-emergent, you should probably put it down in March, or according to label directions – crabgrass can sprout when soil temperatures reach the mid-50 degrees.  Obviously soil  temperatures vary by location and weather variations.  The idea is to get it down BEFORE the crabgrass starts to sprout.  Over-the-counter products are different than the ones licensed applicators apply