The Dallas-Fort Worth area is in a sort of transition zone for lawn grasses. Both warm-season and cool-season grasses will grow here, and your lawn maintenance schedule in the spring will depend on which one’s growing in your lawn.
Cool-season grasses don’t appreciate fertilizer or heavy work on the lawn in the spring. They tend to go dormant in the summer and don’t like being disturbed before the heat rolls in. Warm-season grasses like zoysia and Bermuda grass, on the other hand, thrive in the heat and benefit from more work in the spring.
Spring Feeding
Begin fertilizing warm-season grasses after the last frost date for your area has passed and the lawn starts to turn green. Don’t fertile any earlier – the grass doesn’t need nutrients until it starts actively growing.
Since warm-season grasses continue growing throughout the summer, you can keep fertilizing them through early fall as long as they’re getting enough water to keep from wilting. Follow the instructions on your fertilizer package for timing and application instructions. Most lawn fertilizers are a dry formula that is easy to apply using a drop or rotary spreader.
Open the Soil
Aeration reduces soil compaction and opens up room for water and nutrients to get down into the soil. You want to aerate and dethatch during your lawn’s peak growth so grass roots are more likely to grow back healthy and strong. For Texas lawns with warm-season grasses, perform yearly lawn aeration between March 15th and May 1st. If you have thick thatch in your lawn, dethatch a few days before aerating.
Choose a day when the soil is moist, but not soggy. If there hasn’t been any rain recently, water the soil a day or two before aerating. The best tool for lawn aeration is a core aerator, which removes evenly-spaced plugs of soil from the lawn. These are available in walk-behind models or as tractor tractor-mounted attachments like the Toro ProCore series.
Weed Prevention
You can cut down on the number of weeds in your lawn by applying a pre-emergent herbicide in early spring before soil temperatures rise above 52 degrees Fahrenheit. In the Dallas-Forth Worth area, this typically means applying before March 15th. Pre-emergents prevent annual weed seeds from germinating. They are typically available in granular form so you can apply the herbicide using the same lawn spreader you use for fertilizer. Follow label directions for application rates and instructions.
You can apply a second round of pre-emergent herbicides after aerating to kill any weed seeds that were stirred up by working the lawn. This is also a good time to apply post-emergent herbicides if you’re trying to control weeds that are alive and growing in your lawn. If you need to treat the whole lawn, selective herbicides are available that will kill broadleaf weeds but leave grass undamaged. Use hand-held sprayers for spot-application of liquid herbicides to specific weeds.
