Your Lawn Faces a Bountiful Amount of Texas-Sized Challenges!

  • Aggressive Weeds
  • Poor pH Soil
  • Weather Conditions

Not only are these frustrating and seemingly impossible factors for homeowners – but they will also destroy your lawn!

These impending issues call for several enhancements such as:

  • An improved soil structure

  • Accommodation of the challenging Central Texas weather

  • The development of a superior root system.

We’ve taken the experience we have gained since 2006 and created this insightful lawn page to educate you about grass, weeds, diseases, and insects!

Common Central Texas Grasses

St. Augustine

St. Augustine grass is a warm-season lawn grass that is popular for use in tropical and subtropical regions. It is a low to medium maintenance grass that forms a thick, carpet-like lawn, crowding out most weeds and other grasses. While it is very popular in New Braunfels and the greater Central Texas area, it can be prone to drought stress in the hot summer months without proper watering. Common St. Augustine issues are brown patch fungus, leafspot fungus, chinch bugs, and grub worms.

Bermuda

Bermuda grass is native to warm temperate to tropical regions such as the Sunbelt area of the United States. Bermuda grasses are valued for their drought tolerance compared to most other lawn grasses. When we’ve worked on lawns in Waco and the greater Central Texas area, we’ve seen common Bermuda grass problems such as grubworms, Bermuda mites, leaf spot disease, and occasional fungi. If your lawn is 80% in the sun or higher, then Bermuda grass is the grass for you. It loves the sun.

Zoysia

Zoysia can tolerate wide variations in temperature, sunlight, and water, these grasses are among the most widely used for lawns in temperate climates. They are used on golf courses to create fairways and teeing areas. Zoysia is excellent at repelling weeds throughout the year. Zoysia is a slow-growing grass, so recovery from damage takes a while and that is why preventative measures are best used with Zoysia grass.

Buffalo

Buffalo is a difficult grass to work with. It’s often touted as being more drought tolerant than other grasses, but Bermuda grass is just as drought tolerant and not nearly so problematic. You can’t treat weeds with buffalo grass. We don’t recommend that you plant this type of turf in your yard.

Common Central Texas Broadleaf Weeds

Weeds are just plants that grow really well without a lot of care and end up growing everywhere we don’t want them to.

Weed Factoids

  • When your lawn is in dormancy weeds have more space and energy to thrive.
  • Weeds grab all the resources before the turf-plant can get them, so they tend to grow a little faster and in more places than grass does.
  • Thousands of weed seeds are spread on lawns in San Marcos and surrounding areas.

Here’s how we drop the hammer on those bad-boys!

  • Twice a year, we apply a pre-emergent weed barrier.
    • This lasts for up to 6 months, while weed & feed from big-box stores only lasts 60 days.
    • Unlike most store-bought weed control, our application is effective on a broad spectrum of weeds.
    • Our treatment prunes the weeds’ roots on new aggressive spring weeds without impacting the turf’s roots.
  • We spot-treat every round (and between rounds, if needed)
    • We have different treatments depending on your grass type and the temperature outside.
    • We deploy surfactant to help the spray stick to weeds so they can’t reject, shed, or repel the mixture.
    • Our team uses two secret “sauces”. One mimics a nutrient-carrying chemical to the weed’s tap root and the other is a pH reducer that helps the chemical be absorbed faster.

We avoid “blanket spraying” because your lawn does not need it and it’s bad for the environment.

Check out some of our biggest adversaries…

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  • Henbit Common Weed in Belton, TX
  • Dandelion weed found in Buda, TX
  • Thistle weed found in Copperas Cove, TX
  • Spurs weed found in Dripping Springs, TX

Common Central Texas Grassy Weeds

Grassy weeds require persistence in treatment and patience during the process. 

Grassy Weed Factoids

  • Being monocots (true grasses) special care must be taken so as not to harm the grasses you desire!
  • There are annual and perennial Perennials that will appear as established grasses early in the spring. Annuals, like crabgrass, arrive mid-spring and summer.
  • Annual weeds germinate from seeds, grow, flower, and produce more seeds, and die in about 12 months.
  • These are a year-round problem. There are winter and spring annual grassy weeds.
  • Perennials live more than 2 years in the soil and reproduce from parts such as tubers, bulbs, rhizomes (underground stems), or stolons (above ground stems), though some also produce seeds.
  • We have found that perennial weeds are the most difficult to control because of their great reproductive potential and persistence in Temple and surrounding areas.

These pesky deceivers may be the most difficult to deal with, but now they’ve met their match!

Grassy Weeds – We are more persistent than they are!

  • Twice a year – We apply a pre-emergent weed barrier.
    • September-October application for Bermuda lawns is critical.
    • Augustine – we have a special formula we apply only in September-October and even then, we don’t blanket the lawn to avoid root damage.
    • Lasts up to 6 months (Big-box stores weed & feed only lasts 60 days and are not effective on a broad spectrum of weeds)
    • Prunes the weed’s roots on the new aggressive spring weeds without impacting the turf’s roots.
  • We spot-treat every round (and between rounds if needed)
    • We deploy different treatments depending on grass type (Bermuda and St. Augustine families) and temperature.
    • A surfactant helps the spray stick to weeds so they can’t reject/shed/repel the mixture
    • We use two secret “sauces”. One mimics a nutrient-carrying chemical attacks weed’s tap root and the other is a pH reducer that helps the chemical be absorbed by the weed root faster. Our high pH soil “traps” nutrients and weed control products thereby hindering results.
    • Spot Treatments are rain-fast within 6 hours, with visible results in 3-5 days, and weed control within 14 days rather than 28 days for non-commercial products.
    • We avoid “blanket spraying because your lawns do not need it and it’s bad for the environment.

Grassy Weeds

  • Poa Annua weed found in Harker Heights, TX
  • Nutsedge weed found in Hutto, TX
  • Crabgrass weed found in Killeen, TX
  • Dallisgrass weed found in Kyle, TX

The Four Nasties!

Common Central Texas Lawn Diseases

An eye like a hawk and persistence is key to managing lawn disease.

Prevention is the best weapon but if a fungus outbreak strikes, we have you covered.

Lawn Disease & Fungus Factoids

  • Humid conditions, mild days (70° to 90° F), and cool nights are ideal for the development of brown patch disease (one of Central Texas’ biggest lawn ailments).
  • Lawns that have been stressed by heat, drought, dull mower blades, chinch bugs, and grubs will be more susceptible to lawn diseases.
  • In the early stages, many lawn diseases and bug infestations look similar. If you observe something suspicious, like large patches of discoloration or spots on the blade of your grass leaf, please text or call us.

The Offense is the Best Defense

We are on the lookout throughout the year:

  • We look for and spot treat a variety of lawn diseases as part of your lawn program.
  • We check for chinch bugs during each visit.
  • We offer liquid de-thatch in late August or early September.
  • Our preventative blanket fungicide can be applied beginning in September.

What we are looking for:

  • Varies greatly on the type of grass and soil conditions seen in San Antonio and surrounding ares.
  • Diameters of patches range from a few inches to several feet.
  • Irregular, tan leaf spots (burnt cigarette appearance) with dark-brown borders on grass blades near the soil surface
  • Chinch bugs. They can infest a lawn and the damage they cause can resemble lawn disease.

Things You Can Do to Control Lawn Diseases & Fungus:

  • Call us at the beginning of September to apply a preventative blanket fungicide.
  • Water early in the day to allow the grass to dry quickly.
  • Improve turf grass root system with liquid aeration and good drainage.
  • Remove grass clippings if the weather is warm and moist to prevent spread to other areas during mowing.
  • Do not allow thatch to build up – (We offer liquid de-thatch in late August or early September).
Protect Your Lawn from Disease

The Fearsome Foursome of Lawn Disease…

Common Central Texas Turf Insects

Beware - Bad Bugs Bite & Chew

Some bite and sting our children and pets. Others love turfgrasses and their root systems. Regardless, these problematic insects must be managed if you don’t want painful bites and expensive lawn damage.

Turf Insect Factoids

  • With 100,000 types of insects known to exist in the United States, one-third can be found in the Lone Star State. According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, “Texas has more different kinds of insects than any other state.”
  • Unfortunately, many homeowners in Dripping Springs and surrounding areas mistake insect damage for lawn disease and do not treat it correctly.
  • Worse, by the time you see the damage done, it’s too late.
  • Timely and persistent management is the only way to protect your family and our lawn investment.
  • Because of Central Texas’s climate and warm turfgrasses, there is a damaging turf insect for every season and some last several seasons.
  • Knowing what and where to look for turf insects and disease can save you a lot of money and aggravation.
  • The store-bought treatment contains harsh chemicals that are highly toxic to birds, fish, and wildlife.
  • Store-bought treatment must be applied at least 2x per year.

We Know What to Look for and How to Treat

  • Unlike over-the-counter insect products which tout “quick kill”, they have very short life spans for residual results. Our formula lasts through the entire lawn season.
  • With every visit, our technicians will examine your lawn for insects and diseases.
  • We will apply a beneficial, low-impact mixture just to the places needed.
  • We don’t use ingredients that are photosynthesized to avoid additional lawn burn or other new problems.
  • Grubs turf insect found in Waco, TX
  • Chinch Bugs turf insects found in Buda, TX
  • Flea turf insects found in Hutto, TX
  • Fire Ants turf insects found in Kyle, TX
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Get a Green and Weed-Free Lawn with Emerald Lawns!

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