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Brooks's Blog: The Green-Up Begins

Few enjoy mowing the lawn, but the verdant aesthetic of the warm season does bring to many the thoughts of pleasant evenings and good times. With spring-like temperatures making a sudden and prolonged appearance, memories of this past winter's killing freezes will soon be distant. That's because with nice weather like this, the dormant St. Augustine grass lawns across Houston have already begun to wake up! We're seeing sprouts of green magically popping up and within a month, the brown landscape of the suburbs will become lush and full of life, assuming we don't get hit with a late-season freeze. Typically, soil temperatures need to reach about 65° for southern lawns like St. Augustine and Bermuda to grow. While it can get cooler than that during the nights in late-winter and early-spring, our recent warmer afternoons have baked the soil sufficiently with solar rays to keep it just warm enough through these longer nights to sustain growth. Because we're entering what should be an overall rainy pattern, you won't need to do any watering any time soon and arctic air masses should stay well to our north. Do keep in mind that our region has seen freezes well into mid-March, but some years by this time we find ourselves all done for the season. Is it time to plant that spring garden? You may be able to get away with it, but waiting three more weeks might be a better bet. -Brooks Garner

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