water the grass?

K

kmac30

500+ Posts
at what point do we say f-it and stop? i was just out of town for the last week, got home late last night. this morning i woke to some pretty bad sites. lost a few plants and my yard looks horrid in areas that get sun all day, even with sprinklers twice a week.

on top of this, i just got my water bill for the last month. wow. rain isn't in sight. this weather is amazing. how long will you go before just mowing one last time and hoping for the best? i'm close. just going to lay out the soakers for the flower beds.
 
depends on the grass.

I would think st augustine will be toast.

I'm sure my bill will be brutal as well. But we are probably half way through the hell part, so no reason to let it go now. Repairing a wasted yard is no fun either.
 
I took this approach with my st. augustine 2 summers ago and got to buy all new st. augustine in the fall. The grass was toast. Although, in the end, I am not sure which approach was cheaper. One thing to keep in mind is that the water is good for the foundation as well, so it is not just to keep the grass up.
 
so st augustine won't recover? i didn't know that. it's taken me 2+ yrs to get our yard think can to grow in some areas. i can't sacrifice that. guess i'll stick with the watering.
 
mine was 180. what drives me more insane, our electric usage has dropped compared to the same time frame as last year, but the bill overall was larger b/c of water.
 
aggy did a recent study to determine the drought tolerance of Texas turfgrasses that I've found very helpful. Here's the final report. Here's the consumer summary.

You'll see that St. Augustine Floratam is significantly more drought tolerant than other St. Augustine varieties and is the only variety with a chance of surviving a drought without supplemental water. All the others will be toast. Unfortunately, it's not cold hardy north of I-10 so that excludes it from being used in the Austin area.

As a result of this study I installed Amerishade this spring and it's a fantastic grass for my yard which has plenty of shade. I haven't cut back on water, yet, since it's still establishing itself, but it's the nicest looking St. Augustine I've ever seen. If you're not sure what variety of St. Augustine is in your yard, it's most likely Raleigh which has been the most popular variety in Central Texas for many years because it has many good qualities, but drought tolerance isn't one of them.

It's nice to see that aggy has something to hang their hat on other than meat judging. Lord knows it's not football.
 
xeriscape the *****, run some drip lines to the plants you want to keep, and buy more beer.
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When your neighbor goes to work in the morning, run a hose from their house to your lawn sprinklers.
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If you decide to stop watering the grass, be prepared for the pain of resodding the entire yard.
 
Snakes are being drawn to watered lawns in larger numbers than in the past. There are just about as many venomous bites in the Austin area now than all of last year combined. They are in residential areas not usually likely to have them. To me that is reason enough not to water my yard.
 
I quit watering 3 years ago. Zero. None. I have some nice big trees in my yard and it is like walking in the woods now. I had some St. Augustine and it still exists in patches that have survived but it is certainly not a lawn. I still have to mow about 2-3 times per year because the horse herb and other larger leaf ground cover will get several inches tall. What a cheap, lazy bum I am but I'm just going with mother nature and the neighbors don't seem to mind. They like my trees.
 
Nothing wrong with a well-designed xeriscape, but I suspect few neighbors would approve of a yard that was left to the native weeds. That is unless you're in a rural setting with a natural buffer between yards.
 
mmm, tasty burger. Not as good as a Big Kahuna burger (yeah, that Hawaiian joint) but a tasty burger.

Rattlers don't always warn as we all know. The times people are being popped in their yards are sunrise time frame, sun down time frame and the coolest parts of the night. Y'all should water your yards with some Snake Potion. I can sell you some if you want. It comes in oil form.
 
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