Brown Lawns Spread Frowns

If homeowners and their homeowners associations cannot bear the thought of a brown spot on a lawn during the summer, I wonder what they must be thinking now when there is scarcely a green blade of grass to be found, except maybe under some trees. It cannot have escaped anyone's notice that we had a hard freeze recently. That doesn't happen every year, any more than hurricanes or droughts are necessarily annual events. It is at times like these when we find out how well or poorly our landscapes have been designed, installed and maintained.

Floratam St. Augustinegrass has very poor cold tolerance and can suffer irreversible damage in a hard freeze. That damage becomes even more likely when poor cultural practices have been used. The worst of those practices are common mistakes made by homeowners attempting to defy the seasons and keep a lush green lawn all year long. Too much fertilizer can be a chronic problem for lawns, and to make matters worse, if applied too heavily or frequently, it doesn't stay where it is applied. Add some water from rain or irrigation, and next you'll find that green lushness you coveted for your yard is showing up in your pond as pond scum.

In the growing season, over-fertilization can favor the triumph of insects and diseases. In the winter, that tender new growth that attracts pests in summer becomes a life-threatening vulnerability when the grass should be dormant or nearly so. Soil compaction, excessive thatch from too much fertilizer and mowing too low are among the worst things you can do to your lawn.

Surviving freezing weather is most likely when a series of light preconditioning frosts precede the hard freeze. But we went from lovely balmy weather with some early spring-type blooming to temperatures that we humans consider very unlike Florida. Don't despair yet: The extent of damage will not be knowable until spring green-up is well under way. If all or part of your lawn has been destroyed because of poor cultural practices that doomed it during the hard freeze, you may want to consider more cold- and drought-resistant grass choices.

In decreasing order of cold tolerance are: zoysiagrass, Bermudagrass, Bahiagrass, Centipedegrass, seashore paspalum, carpetgrass and finally, St. Augustinegrass. All types of lawn grasses have their pros and cons. For my money, Argentine Bahiagrass is the best choice for cold tolerance, drought tolerance, fewest insect and disease problems and its preference for low fertility sandy soil. Of course, there are also alternative groundcovers and evergreen shrubs to consider, if your HOA allows Florida-friendly landscaping to replace turfgrass.

If you are fortunate enough to have your Floratam lawn survive this time, remember to mow high - 3 to 4 inches - fertilize moderately during the growing season to reduce thatch and to stop fertilizing with nitrogen by October. Increasing the soil's capacity to hold more moisture by top-dressing with organic compost is also a wise preparation to accommodate water restrictions. Considering how the green lushness of required lawn areas are enshrined in HOA deed restrictions, shouldn't equal attention be paid to ensuring they are sustainable through climate and weather extremes?

One last thought; your brown lawn is a good reason to back off on the watering. We are in a severe drought that has lasted three years, and water supplies are dangerously low. Water is a wonderful, life-sustaining essential, but it won't bring a dead lawn back to life. It may even be the coup de grace if it rots the roots. If you cannot restrain yourself from over-watering brown grass, what hope do we have to avoid withdrawing so much water from the ground that lake levels drop precipitously or dry up and wetlands suffer long-term damage? It has happened before.