The Texas Lawn Care Calendar: What to Do Each Season

A Texas lawn runs on a warm-season clock. Bermuda, St. Augustine, zoysia, and buffalograss do their growing from late spring through early fall, then go brown and dormant after frost, which means a lot of the lawn advice printed on product bags is written for northern grasses on a northern schedule. Getting pre-emergents, fertilizer, and mowing onto Texas timing is most of the battle.

The calendar below runs from late winter through the following winter. Slide everything a few weeks earlier along the Gulf Coast, where the last frost in zone 9a comes between mid February and early March, and a few weeks later in the Panhandle, where zone 6b and 7a lawns may not see their last frost until mid or even late April.

First, Know Your Grass

Each of the four common Texas turfgrasses has its own habits, and a few tasks below apply to only one of them.

• Bermuda: full sun only, tough under traffic and drought, quick to invade flower beds.
• St. Augustine: the shade-tolerant standby of Houston and the Gulf Coast; thirstier than the others, with chinch bugs and fungus as its known weaknesses.
• Zoysia: dense, slow growing, decent in part shade, fewer mowings per year.
• Buffalograss and native mixes such as Habiturf: very low water needs once established, best in full sun in the drier western half of the state; Turffalo is a turf-type buffalograss developed for Texas lawns.

Not Sure What You Have?

Take a plug or a clear photo to a local garden center. St. Augustine shows broad, flat blades on thick surface runners; bermuda is fine-textured with wiry stems; zoysia feels stiff and dense underfoot; buffalograss is soft, gray-green, and curly. Identifying the grass first keeps you from buying a weed control product that damages it, since several common herbicides are safe on bermuda but not on St. Augustine.

Late Winter: January and February

Resist the urge to feed a brown lawn. Dormant grass cannot use fertilizer; the winter weeds growing in it can, so hold nitrogen until well after green-up. Do water dormant turf during long dry spells, and give everything a deep soaking ahead of a forecast hard freeze, since hydrated grass crowns survive cold better than dry ones.

Late winter's one deadline is the spring pre-emergent, which has to go down before crabgrass and the other summer annual weeds germinate in warming soil. Along the Gulf Coast that means late January into February; in North Texas, February into early March; in the Panhandle, March. Sharpen the mower blade while the machine is idle.

Spring: March Through May

Green-up tracks the last frost, arriving from early March around Austin in zone 8b, mid to late March in the DFW area in 8a, and well into April across the High Plains. Bermuda owners often scalp once at green-up, mowing short and bagging to clear the dead winter blades so soil warms faster; leave St. Augustine unscalped, since it spreads by surface runners that a scalping tears up.

Fertilizer waits until the lawn is genuinely growing, a point most easily judged by the mower: once you have cut actual green grass two or three times, feed it. Feeding earlier mostly subsidizes weeds. A modest application now, repeated in early summer, beats one heavy dose, and a soil test through your county extension office will tell you whether you need anything beyond nitrogen at all.

Summer: June Through August

Raise the mowing height in June and leave it there; taller blades shade the soil, slow evaporation, and drive roots deeper. Water deeply and infrequently, in the early morning, aiming for about an inch a week including rain. When cities move into staged summer watering restrictions, as many across Texas do, that same deep-and-infrequent habit fits a once- or twice-weekly schedule without much adjustment.

Summer is also pest season. Chinch bugs hit St. Augustine during hot, dry stretches, showing up as expanding straw-colored patches in full sun, often along sidewalks and driveways. Grub damage appears from late summer, with turf browning and peeling up like loose carpet. Go easy on fertilizer in the worst heat, especially on St. Augustine; a stressed lawn does not need a push.

Fall: September Through November

September opens with the year's second pre-emergent, this one aimed at winter annuals like henbit and annual bluegrass; early in the month is the target for most of the state. The season's last fertilization lands four to six weeks before your first frost, which works out to roughly late September in the Panhandle, where frost arrives from mid October to early November, early October in the DFW area with its mid November frost, and mid to late October from Austin down to the coast, where frost holds off until late November or well into December.

Cool, damp fall weather wakes up large patch in St. Augustine and zoysia, visible as circular yellow-to-brown areas that expand outward. Cut back on evening irrigation at the first sign of it, and keep mowing at the regular height until growth actually stops.

Winter: December Into January

Dormant is not dead. Stay off frozen grass, which snaps rather than bends, and spot-treat winter weeds while they are small instead of waiting for the spring flush. In a dry winter, water the lawn about once a month and always before a hard freeze. Down in the Rio Grande Valley, where frost is rare, lawns may never fully brown out and will still want an occasional winter mowing.

The Year at a Glance

Tape this list inside the garage door and the lawn mostly takes care of itself.

• Late winter: spring pre-emergent down before soil warms; no fertilizer on dormant grass.
• Spring: scalp bermuda at green-up; first feeding after the third mowing of real growth.
• Summer: mow high, water deep and early, watch St. Augustine for chinch bugs.
• Early fall: winter pre-emergent in early September; final feeding four to six weeks before frost.
• Late fall: watch for large patch, keep mowing until growth stops.
• Winter: stay off frozen turf, spot-treat weeds, soak before hard freezes.