As Texas enters the winter season, you may notice your warm-season grass changing as well! Lawn dormancy is a normal occurrence and shouldn’t cause you to worry. To keep you stress-free about your changing lawn, we’ve gathered some timely information to help you know what to expect as your warm-season turf goes dormant.

Here’s what we will cover in this blog:

Why your lawn goes dormant
When your lawn will go dormant
Characteristics of a dormant lawn
Unsynchronized dormancy
Proper care of a dormant lawn

Dormant Lawn Characteristics

It can be hard to discern whether brown grass indicates a dead or dormant lawn. Dormant grass is typically brown in color, straw-like, and patchy. While you can’t prevent your warm-season turf from turning brown in the winter, a healthy lawn will green up nicely after winter dormancy.

A true defining characteristic of dormant grass is the live grass crowns that wouldn’t be present in dead grass. A good test to tell if your grass is dormant or dead is to gather a handful and give a small tug. If there is resistance, your grass is still alive. Dead grass will pull free from the ground. The live crown will enable the grass to green up and grow once again once temperatures warm up.

Unsynchronized Dormancy

You may notice some odd patterns of green grass throughout your dormant lawn. Fear not, this is only your lawn settling into dormancy. This is known as unsynchronized dormancy. These patterns may appear as your lawn emerges from dormancy as well.

Unsynchronized dormancy is caused when temperatures fluctuate from warm to cold. This causes your lawn to be confused, unsure if it’s time to sleep or stay awake! Some parts of your yard will respond to the colder temperatures and turn brown and dormant, while other sections will respond to warmer temps and resist dormancy.

You don’t need to worry about unsynchronized dormancy, it isn’t uncommon and will resolve itself on its own. However, be aware of the difference between unsynchronized dormancy and disease or pest damage. Fungal diseases will appear in a circular pattern, overtaking an entire solid spot while insect disease will appear as a path of damaged turf.

Proper Dormant Lawn Care

Because winter is a resting period for your turf, here are a few things you can do to allow the best dormancy:

Clear debris from the yard that could cause additional stress
Eliminate leaves that could provide unnecessary moisture and disease
Avoid traffic on the lawn that can encourage stress
When lawn presents signs of wilt, water when temps are above freezing. It’s good to water every two to three weeks for 15 to 20 minutes when temperatures permit
Pull any weeds that may pop up randomly

Taking care and paying attention to your yard during the winter months will help your turf green-up wonderfully in the spring! For information about emerging dormancy, check out our other blog.