Dear C.J, Is there a grass that stays green year round in Phoenix, AZ? What do the golf courses use?

Thanks,

-Diane

Hi Diane,

Yeah, this is a tough one.Unfortunately as you well know, Phoenix gets hot enough in the Summer to cause small animals to spontaneously combust into a puff of smoke.The Winter gets a tad chilly, but not usually enough to break out the snowblower. The warm season grasses will often go dormant as the temperatures cool below their preferred brick oven type environment.While dormant, the grasses take on a bland straw color that causes many people to erroneously assume the lawn is dead. It’s not. The cooler season grasses on the other hand will do quite well in the Winter, but will disintegrate into ash when the mercury rises. Unlike the Phoenix of mythology, these grasses do not then rise from the ashes.

SO, what do the golf courses do? Often times they transition from one to the other. This is the reason that mid latitude states are referred to as the “Transition Zone.” On a side note, I’m hereby staking claim to the name “Transition Zone” for any television show or movie that somebody may wish to create involving creepy people doing scary things to nice people.

During the Summer, the turfgrass managers allow Bermuda grass to dominate. This loves the heat and does quite well in Arizona. It’s actually the perfect example of working with nature, instead of fighting it. When it starts to go straw brown and dormant as the Fall temperatures cool, it is the perfect time to get a cooler season grass known as Perennial Ryegrass into the lawn. To do that, you’ll need some seed, a core aerator, and some elbow grease.

If you read my column regularly, then you’ll know that I have a penchant for core aeration. This procedure is like the long term miracle tonic that lawns can’t get enough of, and the benefits are practically endless. In this case, we can use a core aerator to punch holes through the Bermuda grass and expose the soil down in the root zone. All these open holes are perfect little spots for new seed to germinate. The temporary downside to core aeration is that your lawn will look as if you hosted a party for a pack of wiener dogs the morning after Thanksgiving. Luckily, nature takes care of this pretty quickly and the cores break down with the rain. Whatever the rain does not do, the mowers will.

After aerating, fill up a regular old fertilizer spreader with Perennial Ryegrass seed and spread it throughout the property, wherever there are holes. Next, set up some sprinklers (if you don’t have an automatic irrigation system) and water, water, water! Don’t forget, seed sits as dormant as an average teenager when it’s dry. Daily watering is ideal for new seed growth.

Luckily, you should only need to do this once per year.In the late Spring, when the temperatures start hitting the mid-upper nineties, stop watering for about two weeks. The Ryegrass will be as dead as a doornail about the same time that the Bermuda will start noticing that it’s just a tad thirsty.Then water again to encourage the formerly dormant Bermuda to take over. Though it’s probably a bit more work then you were hoping for, this procedure will give you that year round lawn you were looking for.