Juniper Lawns LLC

01/19/2026

First hard freeze of the season is forecasted for next weekend by most models - looks like we might get down as low as 20F which could easily break most RPZs (backflow preventer device you have if you have your own septic tank) and possibly some in-ground backflow preventers (you generally have this if you are on city sewage). Make sure you winterize your irrigation system and all outdoor spigots while there is still enough time.

Check our guide on https://www.juniper-lawns.com/post/diy-irrigation-winterization or get an irrigation professional to do it for you.

A quick guide for home-owners to winterize their irrigation system in Central Texas (particularly Williamson County / north Austin) area, although this is very similar for all southern states). We suggest that you find a licensed irrigator to do winterizing as they can also perform a whole system ev...

05/10/2025

A customer contacted us to re-sod his front lawn which was destroyed by combination of watering restrictions and of previous contractor's aeration puncturing his irrigation lines, which the customer did not realize until a few months later. Often we would suggest aeration and overseeding as a cheaper alternative, but there was nothing to aerate (the builder put in extremely shallow low quality dirt), and due to the hill just behind the property, and the incline of the property itself, seeding in April would be extremely risky.

Old sod was removed, irrigation drip-lines fixed and switched from sprayers to R-VANs, 9 cubic yards of quality dirt added (close to 3"), and new Bermuda sod installed.

Newly installed sod was mowed 13 days later. No dead or unhealthy tiles, and another satisfied customer.

04/12/2025

Fixing client's irrigation system as part of seeding very shady lawn with Zoysia in order to prepare it for their daughter's graduation party.

Irrigation has been installed 27 years ago, hasn't been run for last 3 years, had low pressure and previous irrigation contractor(s) diagnosed it as either an electrical issue or pressure issue due to client's water softener (the client actually replaced water softener because of this, although the irrigation and drinking water supplies are completely separate). All the station valves seemed to be replaced, but the main valve was never touched (it was hidden by dirt, but right next to backflow preventer, so trivial to find).

Initial evaluation:
- good static pressure, almost non-existent dynamic pressure beyond double-check valve (double-check valve likely stuck almost completely closed)
- no main shut-off valve, and main valve is placed in front of backflow preventer
- main valve is slightly leaking and and is stuck open

Original installer also decided to tap the main water line and place backflow prevent right in middle of 3 old trees which made digging "interesting" due to 27 years of root growth and composted leaves which meant the original plumbing was 14" under grade.

We had to rip everything out next to T to the main water line, put in a proper main shut-off valve, new double-check valve assembly and new main valve, and the system came back to life. Amazingly, majority of sprinkler bodies and heads are OKish, so just wrapping up a few finishing touches as we move some zones to MP Rotators due to excessive runoff.

03/30/2025

Mowing 4 day old Bermuda lawn jungle

Is mowing warm season lawns every 2 weeks sufficient?
This is a lawn treated with biochar and soil amendements over last 2 year, only lightly fertilized with 10-10-10 4 weeks ago; some decent rain today and 3 days ago.

Single cut of front lawn (not yet trimmed), and partially cut back lawn (will need to be double-cut although the last mow was only 4 days ago). We will soon need to apply growth regulator to this property.

12/31/2024

https://www.juniper-lawns.com/irrigation-winterization

The current high confidence weather forecast indicates that unusually warm December will switch to somewhat unseasonably cold January starting this weekend, and that we will see the first hard freeze of the season on Monday, January 6th, and the cold weather will likely continue for most of next week.

If you haven’t already winterized your irrigation and outside spigots, do it before the end of this weekend (https://www.juniper-lawns.com/irrigation-winterization), or find an reputable irrigation company to do it for you. It might also be a good idea to check your generators and fuel supplies, although only cold weather rather than winter storm is in forecast.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Juniper Lawns Team

A quick guide for home-owners to winterize their irrigation system in Central Texas (particularly Williamson County / north Austin) area, although this is very similar for all southern states).

11/19/2024

Over-seeding Warm Season Lawns

As nighttime temperatures gradually fall below 65F, consider possibly over-seeding your lawn with annual ryegrass or winter clover.

Over-seeding our warm season lawns in Central Texas is not wide spread, but can be extremely beneficial, especially if you want year-around green lawn, have patchy lawn, or are planning to sell your property during colder months of the year.

Pros:
- Your lawn should remain green during winter even as your Bermuda/Zoysia goes dormant (from first hard freeze until usually April, depending on strength of your lawn).
- If you have patchy lawn, growing grass with roots in the ground will keep your soil alive, reduce compaction and erosion, and make it easier to repair your lawn next Spring.
- Both annual ryegrass and winter clover will die next April as your warm season lawn starts waking up, which reduces competition (they are also both trivial to kill with herbicides if needed).

Cons:
- If your warm season lawn is already in good shape, it can be somewhat relaxing to let it go dormant and take a few months off from mowing.
- While cool-season lawn will reduce rate of winter w**d germination, it will also make it harder to use herbicides to kill w**ds (especially Poa Annua, as it is a cold season grass, same as rye grass).
- You will not be able to apply winter pre-emergent herbicides as they will prevent rye grass or clover seeds from growing.

https://www.juniper-lawns.com/post/over-seeding-warm-season-lawns

11/09/2024

Fall Mowing and Fertilization

Some people change their mowing height and fertilizer mix in order to "prepare for the winter", but we disagree with this practice, and advise to continue mowing at the standard mowing height and fertilize at the standard 4-1-2 NPK ratio until the lawn goes dormant.

We generally advise against increasing mowing height as it creates more mess to deal with in Spring, and does little to protect from freeze.

Warm season lawns that we have in our area will go dormant after the first hard freeze, and will have to be scalped in the Spring as they start to wake up. Increasing mowing height both makes the dormant lawn aesthetically unpleasing, and it increases the amount of grass that will have to be scalped in the Spring.

Slightly higher lawn can help in prevention of freeze damage, but not in a way that most people imagine (i.e. that 4" lawn will protect the soil more than 1" lawn from freezing temperatures). Higher grass blades, due to higher area of grass blades, can generally hold more surface water than shorter glass blades. Freezing of water releases 144 BTUs of heat per 1 pound of water (water turning into ice heats up the plants and the environment), so a soaked lawn, with irrigation constantly running, can avoid damage from a hard freeze (water inside of plants will not freeze) simply due to heat/energy released by turning water into ice. You should generally avoid this unless you know what you are doing, and you expect a relatively short freeze (since most of irrigation systems in our area can only run one zone at a time, so we can't provide constant irrigation to the whole lawn during the freeze).

Winterizing fertilizer is unnecessary, and in our opinion is mostly a marketing trick, and standard 4-1-2 NPK ratio should be used. It is true that different elements support different parts of the plant, but the plant can only use what it needs, and bumping up one of the elements will not magically create deeper roots, more stored energy, or more healthy plant (i.e. would you rather take an extremely strong Calcium supplement to promote bone health, or a balanced supplement, with sufficient Calcium, that promotes overall health).

04/27/2024

04/27/2024

Setting Up Rachio Controller Correctly

While Rachio can be a great irrigation controller when set up properly, most of them in the Austin area are set up incorrectly (although that is true for most irrigation controllers), and will cause significant underwatering of the lawn. The main culprits are Rachio’s incorrect default precipitation rates, and smart watering features which often don’t work with once a week watering restrictions.

Precipitation Rates

When you select turf nozzle for your zone in Rachio application, Rachio assigns it a precipitation rate which they claim is based on industry averages, but is in most cases incorrect (even for nozzles they recommend).

The correct precipitation rate requires either a cup test or an accurate irrigation plan, but lacking that, at least you can enter more reasonable values compared to Rachio defaults.

Rotary Nozzle - Rachio’s default is 0.7 in/hour, but most rotary nozzles installed in the last few years in the Austin area are Hunter MP Rotators with 0.4 in/hour in the most common configuration. RainBird rotary nozzles are generally 0.6 in/hour. If you are not sure what type of nozzle you have, 0.4 in/hour is a more reasonable choice.

Rotor Head - Rachio’s default is 1.0 in/hour, which is again much higher than most installed rotor heads, which are in most cases either RainBird 5000 (0.4 in/hour) or Hunter PGP (0.4 in/hour). Again, 0.4 in/hour is a more reasonable default choice.

Fixed Spray Head - Rachio’s default is 1.5 in/hour, which is pretty reasonable, although both Hunter and RainBird spray nozzles are generally around 1.6 in/hour.

You can change precipitation rate in advanced settings for each zone in your Rachio app.

Smart Watering Features

For this section, we assume that Rachio’s evapotranspiration calculations are correct, and assume you are allowed to water once a day per week, for 12 hours (which is the case for most properties in the Austin area). In the Austin area, most irrigation zones with warm season grasses (Bermuda, Zoysia, St. Augustine) should run for 154 minutes/week during summer (fixed spray zones should run a quarter of that) - there is no way to achieve this with only a 12 hour irrigation window, so the task of your irrigation controller changes from saving water to maximizing the water usage in a well distributed way across the zones.

Spring and Fall - we are still getting some rainfall, and evapotranspiration is still not at its maximum, so we recommend enabling all of Rachio’s Weather Intelligence features, but changing the Rain Skip threshold to 1” (this can be done from “Edit Home” menu).

Summer (Jun/Jul/Aug) - we recommend disabling all of Weather Intelligence features. This means your irrigation will run both during high wind, and during active rain event which is suboptimal for water conservation, but your only choices are to play by rules your water company gave you (and use every second of those 12 hours), pay the fines for breaking the rules (and possibly even conserve some water if you are watering during optimal periods), or re-sod your lawn every Spring (or potentially install drip irrigation, or switch to xeriscaping).

While Rachio can be a great irrigation controller when set up properly, most of them in the Austin area are set up incorrectly (although that is true for most irrigation controllers), and will cause significant underwatering of the lawn. The main culprits are Rachio’s incorrect default precipitati...

04/01/2024

Grub Season Is Upon Us

With the relatively warm winter this year, it seems that the grub season is also starting a bit early, and we had reports from 3 customers that found grubs while they were digging in their flower beds. We didn’t notice any turf damage or armadillo holes yet, but these are certain to follow soon after.

White grubs are larvae of various scarab beetles. They stay in the ground (usually 2-6 inches deep) and feed on the roots of warm and cool season grasses. Healthy turfgrass that is not under stress can usually tolerate 6-10 grub per square foot, but since many lawns in the Austin area have been damaged due to last year’s watering restrictions, any additional stress to the turf is not recommended.

Identifying grub activity can be difficult, especially on lawns already damaged or stressed by improper irrigation; three methods we use:
- Armadillo tracks on morning dew, and armadillo holes in the lawn. Armadillos love eating grubs, and this is the easiest sign to spot and notify you that you have a grub problem.
- Weak and dying patches of turf which are slowly expanding. Dig on the border of the patch to confirm grub activity.
- Digging 1 square foot patches of turf to check for grub activity. This is most invasive and time consuming, and we generally don’t recommend it.

While preventative grub control is possible, it must be timed correctly, and applied in the summer to control newly hatched grubs. They will not control large grubs present in the spring. Most of the products in big box stores are of this nature (active ingredient is most often imidacloprid).

For curative (contact) control for grubs we find in spring, only carbaryl and trichlorfon are effective. We have found that Anderson’s DuoCide (carbaryl and bifenthrin mix) at high rates (8 lbs / 1,000 sqft) gives us the best results, while also eliminating most other lawn pests, but there are certainly other effective products. Make sure that they contain either carbaryl or trichlorfon, and apply at rates that control white grubs.

With the relatively warm winter this year, it seems that the grub season is also starting a bit early, and we had reports from 3 customers that found grubs while they were digging in their flower beds. We didn’t notice any turf damage or armadillo holes yet, but these are certain to follow soon af...

03/06/2024

Bermuda lawn that was damaged last summer due to improper scalping prior to leveling.

Still a few week spots, and lawn is still about 40% dormant, but pretty good for March 6th 😀