Harris County Municipal Utility District No. 106
Through HCMUD No. 106’s website you can easily find links to the following services:
Through HCMUD No. 106’s website you can easily find links to the following services:
TLDR – Too long, didn’t read:
The winter and spring were quite soggy, but March brought a change of pace, with some weeks experiencing no rain. If you have applied fertilizer and granular herbicide as recommended, it may have been watered in just recently, but that’s still okay. If your grass is not green and your landscape is not blooming, it’s time to take a close look at what’s going wrong and consider seeking help.
This is likely our last pleasant and mild weather month for a while to work on your lawn, garden, and landscape. Hopefully, rainfall will continue to be moderate and timely.
If you’re a home gardener, this is the month you’re expecting to see some of your first harvest. Furthermore, it is a big month for planting more heat-tolerant plants. If you have drip irrigation systems in place (I highly recommend), you should be checking for problems this month before the May heat kicks in.
Do not forget to feed your roses monthly. If you haven’t fertilized your shrubs and trees yet this spring, now is the time. 1 pound of fertilizer for 1” of trunk diameter.
Spring rains and green grass,
Hunter Soape
TLDR – Too Long Didn’t Read
In the past month, we experienced a wide range of temperatures, but rainfall was consistent on a weekly basis. If you read carefully last month, we discussed February 14th being the average last frost date, but to look at the 10-day forecast before planting any sensitive plants. Well, we had that frost and even freeze, but it was well predicted by the 14th, so hopefully, you heeded the advice in last month’s article.
Our average last frost date has passed, while something unexpected could happen the long-range forecast doesn’t signal any fronts coming. However, for the record the latest spring freeze in Houston was on April 10.
If you are starting a garden, take the risk, and get your tomatoes in the ground as soon as possible to increase yield before the summer heat prevents fruit set. The February article has a planting chart to help you know the best dates to seed or transplant most garden plants. Here is a link to that chart.
If you did not get down a fertilization and/or pre-emergent herbicide in February, there is still time, but hurry. Warm nighttime weather will cause weeds to germinate and begin to emerge; the principle of a pre-emergent is that the seeds do not germinate.
Landscape– If you have not already, get to pruning dead vegetation and pruning back any plants that have become overgrown.
Hunter Soape
hsoape@cdcltd.com
CDC Unlimited, LLC
Just like last year, January once again delivered some extremes regarding moisture and cold. Hopefully, you took the necessary precautions, took care of any cold-sensitive plants, and protected your external pipes. Backflow preventers can be susceptible to cracking even when drained, so check those out in the next month or two and deal with any issues before the heat of summer sets in.
Feb 14 is our “average last frost day” for the greater Houston area, with northern parts of Harris County and Montgomery County et al. seeing that date push back toward the end of the month. If you’re a home gardener, these dates are the jumping-off point for the spring garden. There are plenty of cool-season crops that you can begin working with now, and by the end of the month, you will also be working toward some warm-season plantings. Check out this chart for a handy resource for the best time to plant different crops.
At my house, we will start potatoes any day now. Lettuce will be seeded on a weekly basis for us; it is far superior to what you buy at the store. Tomatoes will go in the ground in the middle of the month if the 10-day forecast keeps us above freezing and there are no “arctic blasts” in the long-range prediction models. Then, March will see us transition toward warm-season crops in full earnest.
Despite 3” snow on the ground Tuesday and persisting in places for a few days. I am seeing green Bermudagrass at ground level already. This month is forecasted to kick off with days in the 70-degree range. The nights will still be cool, limiting the major seasonal shift from winter to spring in our lawns and landscape. However, don’t be surprised to see some color return to your brown dormant lawn this month. With all this said, the steps below will give your turf a strong start to the year.
Barricade or Dimension Pre-emergent is essential now to keep broadleaf and grassy weeds away. This treatment and another in 75-90 days will make a big difference if you have crabgrass.
If you have clover, it probably looked like the freeze knocked it out, but it will rebound quickly. I will have the Clover control plan at the end of this newsletter.
Fast-acting 15-5-10 fertilizer will get your yard greened up and strong early. Nitro Phos Imperial 15-5-10 is widely available and our choice here; they also make an organic alternative called “sweet green,” which is a good choice if you’re looking for that. Skip the “weed and feed.”
If you want to put down a pre-emergent in your landscape beds like “Preen,” now is the time to get it out and dress with fresh hardwood mulch.
Before you refresh that mulch, complete your landscape pruning. We want to prune the roses and crape myrtles in the middle of the month.
Stay Warm and Dry,
Hunter Soape
Identification
Photo credit- Texas AgriLife
We need to use different chemicals depending on what lawn grass you have.
Image Southern Lawn RTS
Broadleaf, large stolons (stems) above ground, in the majority of residential lawns
Spectracide Weedstop for St. Augustine lawns – Purple Label
Bermuda Grass
A fine-textured leaf (1/8” across or less) with a very fine stem/runner has increased in popularity in the past 5-10 years but is a small portion of suburban residential lawns.
Zoysia grass- looks much like Bermuda and falls into the same chemical families to be used.
Treatment—You can use hose-end sprayers (the most straightforward method) or mix in a pump-up sprayer to treat. I have provided links to products at Lowe’s Hardware, but they can be found in many other stores.
Spectracide Weed Stop -Yellow Top
Now is the time to treat your clover. You need a 4-hour window without rain and preferably some sun. Don’t be surprised to see signs of plant stress in under 24 hours after treatment.
Also, treating while your grass is dormant is preferred; it is dormant right now and will be for at least the first few weeks of February. When your turf grass breaks dormancy as the temperatures warm, it is under much stress, and adding a herbicide adds more stress. Zoysia is very susceptible to herbicide stress in that stage. Cleaning up the clover now will improve the uniformity of your lawn in the spring, as the turf grass has less variability of sunlight and soil warming.
Screenshot
December had something for everyone weather wise. If you like it cold there was a few days of that, if you like it warmer there was a lot of that too. We saw some needed rainfall, but nothing extremely heavy or persistent.
2024 was the best year in terms of rainfall and less extreme summer heat and dry spells in at least the last 5 years.
Home gardeners, it is the month to stay warm, and if you start your own tomatoes from seed it is time to start. If you have winter crops in the ground good for you. My indeterminate tomatoes I have talked about every month finally succumbed to a frost on January 6th. Seeing as I planted them about March 1 of 2024 that is a pretty good run. I really do think the fall/winter crop was better than the spring. On Sunday as we were preparing for the incoming weather, we picked gallons of both ripe tomatoes we made sauce with and green tomatoes to be fried up. If I would have had more time, we could have pickled some of those green tomatoes too.
Lawn maintenance should be minimal this month. The frost and cold overnight temps the week of Jan 6th will keep most growth but a few weeds to an absolute minimum.
Ants are showing up nearly everywhere-
December weather was fair, but the early January cold snap has cemented turf grass into dormancy for a while. We are mowing once a month with tractors and twice monthly on shortgrass.
Hunter Soape
November weather returned us to our normally scheduled programming after the extended warm spell. By that I mean many days in the 70s with a few bounces back into the 80s. Also, we saw some sporadic rain which helped us recover from that weird fall dry period.
Home gardeners, you should be starting to benefit from your fall planted cool season crops. My indeterminate tomatoes are producing the most they have all season; we discussed how to do this a few months back. The frost will take them out sometime, maybe tomorrow maybe in January. I am going to grow my homegrown tomatoes until they do, and when frost is eminent, we will make fried green tomatoes with the unripe fruit.
Tired of mowing your lawn? You should get a good break now; our grasses are not dormant since we have not had a frost yet. But they know it is time to shut it down for the season. You may need a cut every 2 weeks to deal with some weeds but the weekly mowings are certainly done for a bit.
November brought a break in the drought and perked up our turf since we had moderately warm temperatures. We are mowing once a month with tractors and twice monthly on shortgrass.
Districts that were treated with a pre-emergent herbicide look clean, those that did not elect for that have noticeably more weed pressure.
Overall, this has been the best year for turf in the past 5 years. No extreme freezes, consistent moisture for most of the year. Only a 45–50-day dry period and it was during 90-degree temps of September and not 100+ temps of July or August.
I am looking forward to another great year in 2025
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Hunter Soape
October or August 3.0 …. I am not sure which month we just turned the page on but it was not our normally pleasant weather for October. Furthermore, after a year of generous rainfall, we fell in to a mini drought. Even though it was only 45 days without rain the heat really burned up the unirrigated turf. The most frustrating part of the past month was that we were all teased by some nice cool fall weather back in September. The cooler nights and then dry weather put a halt to most of the growth of our turf grasses, but it also made the weeds go reproductive. So every time a lawn was mowed you where mostly just knocking down seed heads and very little else, but then the seed heads came back within days.
Last month I said you “you can depend on a reprieve from the heat of our summers” about October and that turned out to be a lie. So, I will just say I hope November is cooler and it’s already starting out wetter than the preceding month.
Home gardeners, again I led you astray about getting fall/winter crops in last month. The good thing is you can try again since most of those plants are directly sown from seed into the garden. If you did get some plants started in October hopefully, they made it through to November
Normally, November would be the month we expect to see mowing frequency reduce. The growing season for our warm season grasses close with this month. Nighttime temps below 65 degrees F will shut down the Bermuda and St. Augustine lawn grass.
Also, this month it is time to switch out your seasonal color in your landscape beds and freshen up the mulch while you are at it. While we are talking about mulch, lets discuss tree volcanos.
Image credit: Texas A&M Forest Service
October was the driest month I we have seen this year, and historically it is the second wettest. Turf conditions have rebounded well this year following 3 high stress years with droughts and hard freezes. The past 2 months have put a strain on turf, but I think this year has been 5 steps forward 1 step back at the worst.
Fall fertilization and herbicide are nearing completion for us.
Mowing schedules for most districts will drop back to monthly service on tractor-maintained areas and from weekly to every other week for shortgrass. However we will keep an eye on this, with a good shot of rain at the beginning of November we could see turf growth take off especially if the weather remains in the 80s during the day and above 65 at night.
Hunter Soape
I am a little late getting this out but I was waiting on September weather to leave and October to arrive. We did have a weird but wonderful week in September of fall weather. Rainfall was in short supply last month; I am pretty sure that is the first time I have said that in 2024.
October is always the month I am looking forward to in the heat of the summer. Weather is pleasant. Rainfall is usually present but not overwhelming. It is the first month you can depend on a reprieve from the heat of our summers.
Home gardeners be thinking about your cool season crops and before the end of the month they need to be in. Most of all for us is being able to have home grown lettuce again. If you haven’t grown your own lettuce for salads, it will make you throw rocks at the stuff in the grocery store. It is extremely easy to grow and quick from germination to harvest.
We are changing gears in our lawns and landscapes as well. The growing season for our warm season grasses close with this month. Nighttime temps below 65 degrees F will shut down the Bermuda and St. Augustine lawn grass.
Also, this month it is time to switch out your seasonal color in your landscape beds and freshen up the mulch while you’re at it.
September was the driest month I think we have seen this year. Turf conditions have rebounded well this year following 3 high stress years with droughts and hard freezes.
We are starting up fall fertilization and herbicide this month. Much like I discussed above. We want drainage turf to be healthy and reduce competition for nutrients and sunlight.
Hunter Soape
August lived up to all expectations of being the most brutal month in our area. But it was one of the better August in the past several years. Most areas received some rain, and the last week of the month was unusually pleasant.
If you are a home gardener this is the month we start getting active again. Heat will subside this month and it gives us a window for lots of vegetables again. Within another month we will be working toward cool season crops as well.
Continue to watch out for insect and fungal problems.
I would expect this month to stay wetter than normal following the trend for this year.
August was back to regular business just with more ground moisture than we have seen for the month in many years. We worked with our districts that where most susceptible to Johnson grass problems and used a targeted herbicide to treat the invasive grass. This treatment was very successful in controlling Johnson grass and most importantly reducing resident complaints about high grass. Currently we are seeing the best grass stand we have seen in many years in our districts.
Warm weather and green grass,
Hunter Soape
What a month! Direct impact from a Cat 1 Hurricane early in the month and then heavy rainfall for over a week toward the end of the month. One thing that holds true, our weather tends toward extremes here in the greater Houston area. Last month we talked about wet conditions and the weed and pest pressure, none of that has changed and we are going to start seeing new problems crop up.
If your garden hasn’t been destroyed between winds, excessive rainfall and long-term saturated soils or pest consider your self a master gardener. Okra and green beans are doing well for me currently but everything else is gone.
Insect pressure is still persistent, we are seeing web worms still in trees and some army worms in lawns. Cinch bugs and grubs can show up anytime, see specific info about them both below. We are going to see fungal problems in many lawns this year with all the moisture and high heat returning.
Weeds have taken off in the best managed lawns this summer. So do not feel bad if you are seeing new weeds pop up in your lawn that where not there 30-45 days ago.
Our drainages and corresponding maintenance to them was front and center in most MUDs and LIDs we serve this past month. Most importantly everything went well and worked as intended. The Hurricane damage was most extensive in areas with old big mature trees, especially where lines of single trees ran North and South. Privacy fences were also impacted heavily and we are still working around a lot of debris from them. Grass growth is looking great, we are continuing to see lots of Johnson grass and expect it to get worse over the next 60 days before slacking off in late September. Just like with lawns, broadleaf weeds are showing up that are not normal for the late summer.
Warm weather and green grass,
Hunter Soape