💧 How often should I water my lawn in Houston?

Q: "I never know how much water is enough in this heat. What's the best schedule for watering grass in our area?"— asked every single summer, by everybody

This is the number one question we get. The answer almost nobody wants to hear: water less often, but water longer. Deep and infrequent builds deep roots. Light and daily builds a shallow, fragile lawn that fries in August and grows fungus in October.

• Two times a week in summer — unless we get rain, then skip it.
• About an inch total per week. Put a tuna can on the lawn and run the zone until it fills. Now you know your run time.
• Before 9 a.m. Evening watering leaves grass wet overnight, and wet grass overnight is how brown patch starts.
• Check it with a screwdriver. If it slides in 6 inches easily, you watered enough. If it stops short, you didn't.

Want the whole system — zone-by-zone run times, sprinkler audits, heat-wave adjustments? The Houston Summer Watering Guide is our complete 27-page walkthrough.

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

📅 What's the best lawn fertilization schedule for Houston?

Q: "When should I fertilize my lawn in Houston for the best results — and what should I use?"

Forget the calendar on the back of the bag. In Houston, one number runs the whole year: soil temperature at 4 inches deep, 55°F. Not the air temp. Not the nighttime low. Soil, four inches down.

• Step 1 — Fix & Wake Up (by Feb 1): Spring pre-emergent goes down. Feb 1 is the practical Houston deadline, but soil temp gets the final vote — some years it's late January.
• Step 2 — Feed & Protect (late March–April): This is the main feed of the year. Wait until the lawn is truly growing — you've mowed it a couple of times — then feed with a slow-release, nitrogen-forward, low-phosphorus fertilizer.
• Summer: Bermuda keeps a 6–8 week feeding rhythm while it's actively growing. St. Augustine does not. It is not on an automatic summer schedule. If it's pale but still growing, that's usually an iron problem, not a nitrogen problem.
• Fall (late Sept–Oct): The fall pre-emergent. This is the one most Houston homeowners skip — and it's why henbit, chickweed, burweed and Poa annua show up in the winter lawn. Those are winter annuals. February is too late to stop them.
• Oct–Nov: Winterizer, applied only while the lawn is still green and actively growing. Follow the bag rate, water it in, then stop. No extra nitrogen once the lawn shuts down.
• Dec–Jan: Nothing. Rest.

The one tool that makes this easy: a soil thermometer. It costs less than a bag of fertilizer and it removes all the guessing.

Soil Thermometer Barricade Pre-Emergent Nitro-Phos Super Turf Browse the Fertilizer Store

This is the short version. The full year — St. Augustine and Bermuda broken out separately, with mowing heights, watering, iron, pests, disease and shopping lists — is in The Texas Two-Step™ Lawn Method, 2026 Edition. It's free, and it replaces every older fertilization schedule we've published.

Get the Complete Grass Guide — Free

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

🌿 What grass type works best for my yard?

Q: "Is there a grass variety that actually survives our Houston weather? I have both sunny and shady spots."

• ☀️ Full sun: Palmetto St. Augustine or Celebration Bermuda. Both take our heat and both look terrific when they're fed and watered correctly.
• 🌤️ Part shade: Palmetto still performs. Zoysia is a good option too — slower growing, softer underfoot, and it doesn't mind a little less light.
• ☁️ Heavy shade: Be honest with yourself. Grass will not win under a mature live oak. You'll spend years replacing sod that dies every summer. Groundcover, shade shrubs, or a mulched bed will look better and cost less.

Sun's not the only thing to check — drainage and soil compaction decide as much as light does. Send us a photo and we'll tell you what we'd do.

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

🧼 Why is my lawn full of weeds this year?

Q: "We didn't have this many weeds last summer! What's going on and how do I stop it?"

Weeds surge after a mild winter, and they surge anywhere the turf has thinned out — drought damage, compaction, shade, or a missed feeding. Weeds don't invade a thick lawn. They move into the gaps.

The fix runs on two tracks:

• Weeds you can already see are a post-emergent job. Pre-emergent will do nothing for them — that ship sailed. Our one general post-emergent recommendation is Celsius WG, which is safe on St. Augustine, Bermuda and zoysia in our heat.
• Weeds you haven't seen yet are a pre-emergent job. Two windows a year, and you need both: by Feb 1 for spring weeds, and late September through October for the winter annuals.
• Mow high. Taller turf shades the soil and the weed seeds never germinate. This is free.
• Thicken the lawn. The best weed control on earth is grass so dense there's nowhere for a weed to land.

Celsius WG Barricade Pre-Emergent Free Celsius Mixing Card Free Weed ID Guide

Not sure what you're actually looking at? Our free Texas Lawn Weed ID & Eradication Guide has photos of 25 Houston weeds and what actually kills each one. Or just send us a photo and we'll ID it for you.

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

🌾 How do I get rid of nut grass (nutsedge) for good?

Q: "Todd — I keep fighting nut grass in my garden and it just keeps coming back. What can I do to finally get rid of it?"

Nutsedge is not a grass and it is not a broadleaf weed — it's a sedge, which is why the weed killer in your garage doesn't touch it. It regrows from underground tubers called nutlets, and a single plant can leave hundreds behind. Pulling it usually snaps the stem and leaves the nutlet right where it was.

• Find the water. Nutsedge is a symptom. It thrives where soil stays soggy — a leaking sprinkler head, a low spot, a bed that doesn't drain. Fix the wet and you take away its advantage.
• Use a product actually labeled for nutsedge. The active ingredient matters here (halosulfuron and sulfentrazone are the common ones). Read the label for your grass type. Apply while it's actively growing.
• Spot-treat only. Never broadcast it across the yard.
• Mulch beds heavily. Thick wood chips or pine bark smother new sprouts and make the ones that push through easy to spot.
• Mow on schedule. Nutsedge outgrows turf between mowings — that's why it's the first thing you notice. Regular mowing keeps it weak and keeps your grass competing.

Shop the Nut Grass Store

Send us a photo at askgardenguy.com/advice — nutsedge gets confused with several look-alikes, and the treatment is different for each.

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

🍂 What causes brown patch in St. Augustine — and how do I fix it?

Q: "I'm seeing circular brown spots spreading across my St. Augustine. Is it a fungus, or am I doing something wrong? And is there a natural way to treat it without harsh chemicals?"— asked by half of Sugar Land, every fall

Usually both. Brown patch (Rhizoctonia solani) is a fungal disease, and Houston's humidity is the perfect incubator for it — but the thing that actually invites it in is almost always how the lawn is being watered.

How to know it's brown patch:

• Roughly circular patches of tan, sunken grass, often 2–3 feet across and expanding outward.
• A smoky gray-green edge where it's actively spreading.
• Tug a yellowing blade — it pulls loose from the runner easily, with a dark rotted spot at the base. The runner itself is still alive. That's the tell.
• It moves fast. A patch can double in a couple of days after a warm, wet night.

Start with the free fixes — they do more than any product:

• Stop the night watering. Morning only, before 9 a.m. Grass that goes into the night wet is a fungus farm. This one change does more than everything else on this list combined.
• Water deep and infrequently — not a little bit every day. Let the lawn dry out between waterings.
• Mow high (3–4 inches) and never when the grass is wet. Bag the clippings while you're fighting an active outbreak so you're not spreading spores around the yard.
• Fix the drainage. Brown patch shows up first in the low spot, the shady corner, the place water sits after a storm. Aerate compacted ground.
• Go easy on the nitrogen in humid weather, especially in fall. Lush, soft, over-fed growth is exactly what the fungus wants.

Prefer to treat it naturally? These work — with patience:

• Horticultural cornmeal. Yes, cornmeal. It feeds soil fungi that antagonize Rhizoctonia. Spread it like fertilizer. Old Texas trick, real science behind it.
• Compost tea. Introduces beneficial microbes that outcompete the disease organisms. Slow and cumulative, but genuinely effective over a season.
• Copper fungicide (OMRI-listed) or potassium bicarbonate — both organic, both best used early or preventively. "Organic" does not mean "can't burn your grass," so apply in the cool part of the day and follow the label.
• Neem oil. Antifungal, and it handles some insect pressure at the same time. Early morning only, never in full sun.
• Light compost top-dressing. A quarter-inch over thin areas builds microbial life and improves drainage at once.

Shop the Brown Patch Store

Still spreading? Send us a photo — brown patch, take-all root rot and chinch bug damage get mixed up constantly, and the treatments are completely different.

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

🐜 How do I treat chinch bugs in my lawn?

Q: "The grass is dying in patches even though I water it. I think I have chinch bugs. What's the best way to get rid of them?"

Chinch bugs are the classic Houston summer heartbreak. They pierce the grass blade, suck the sap, and inject a toxin — so the damage looks exactly like drought stress. People water more, the grass keeps dying, and they can't figure out why.

Confirm it before you treat it. The tell: damage starts in the hottest, driest, sunniest part of the yard — along the sidewalk, the driveway, the south-facing strip. Part the grass at the edge of a dying patch, right where green meets brown, and look at the soil surface. Chinch bugs are small (about ⅕ inch), dark, with white wings folded in an X across the back. If you see them moving, that's your answer.

• Treat at the edge, not the middle. The dead center is already gone. The bugs have moved out to the green margin — that's where the insecticide needs to land.
• Use a labeled granular insecticide and water it in per the label. Lesco CrossCheck PL granular is our go-to — it also covers armyworms, sod webworms and mole crickets.
• Keep the lawn watered and healthy. Chinch bugs hammer hot, dry, stressed turf hardest.
• Recheck in 7–10 days. A heavy population in a hot summer may need a second round.

Lesco CrossCheck PL Granular Shop the Chinch Bug Store

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

🪲 How do I get rid of baby grasshoppers in my garden?

Q: "Hello Todd — baby grasshoppers are chewing the leaves on my flowers. I've never seen them before. Are they new to our area? How do I get rid of them?"

Not new — but you're not imagining the surge either. Baby grasshoppers (nymphs) hatch in big numbers after a warm winter or a wet spring, and they'll strip a flower bed fast. The good news: they are far, far easier to kill while they're small and still clustered together.

• Spot-treat with spinosad. An organic insecticide that works on chewing pests and goes easy on the beneficials. Spray early morning or late afternoon — never in the heat of the day.
• Handpick. Tedious, but genuinely effective while they're small and grouped up. Early morning, when they're sluggish.
• Recruit the predators. Birds, toads and lizards eat these nymphs by the dozen. A shallow water source and a light hand with the sprayer will keep them working for you.
• Skip the broad-spectrum "kills everything" sprays. They wipe out the predators too, and next month's problem is worse than this month's.

Shop Spinosad

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

☁️ What can I plant in shade? My north-facing yard struggles.

Q: "My north-facing backyard gets barely any sunlight. What can I grow that won't die on me?"

Houston shade doesn't mean giving up on a beautiful yard — it means giving up on grass. Once you accept that, the options get good. Four shrubs we plant over and over in low-light Houston yards:

• Cleyera — evergreen, glossy, upright. The workhorse for a shady privacy screen.
• Camellia — blooms in the dead of winter when nothing else does. Worth planting for that alone.
• Dwarf Yaupon Holly — compact, native, nearly indestructible, deer-resistant.
• Japanese Aralia — big bold tropical foliage for the darkest corner you've got.

Two things people get wrong in shade: drainage and water. Shade beds still need moisture — a dry shade bed under a thirsty oak is the hardest spot in the yard. Amend with compost, and check the soil with your finger rather than assuming shade means damp.

Read: Houston's Best Shade-Loving Shrubs

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

🌸 Why don't my flowering plants bloom like they used to?

Q: "My flowers look healthy but they aren't blooming this year. What should I check first?"

Healthy and green but no flowers is a very specific complaint, and it almost always comes down to one of three things:

• Too much nitrogen. Nitrogen builds leaves. If lawn fertilizer is drifting into the beds, or you're feeding a bloomer with a high-N product, you'll get gorgeous foliage and nothing else. Switch to something with more phosphorus and potassium.
• Not enough sun. Most bloomers want 6+ hours. And here's what people miss — the tree that shaded that bed for three hours five years ago now shades it for seven. The bed didn't change. The tree did.
• Pruned at the wrong time. Plenty of plants set next year's buds on old wood right after they finish flowering. Prune in the wrong month and you cut off the whole show before it starts.

Tell us what you're growing at askgardenguy.com/advice and we'll get specific — pruning timing is completely plant-by-plant.

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulturist & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX

🌡️ Can soil get too hot for vegetables?

Q: "Can soil be too hot for vegetables? I was thinking of putting a 1-inch layer of sawdust in the beds. The plants get direct sunlight."— Marcel Beaudoin

Absolutely it can — and raised beds in full sun are the worst offenders, because they cook from all four sides as well as the top. Once soil pushes past about 90°F, roots stop working properly, water uptake slows down, and plants wilt and stall even when you're watering plenty. Most vegetables want soil in the 70–85°F range.

• Sawdust will cool it — with one catch. Light-colored sawdust reflects heat and does insulate. But as it breaks down it ties up nitrogen, pulling it away from your plants. If you use it, add a little nitrogen or compost underneath first.
• Better choices for veggie beds: straw, shredded leaves, or composted bark. They insulate just as well and they feed the soil instead of robbing it.
• Measure, don't guess. Push a soil thermometer 4–6 inches down at mid-afternoon — that's the number that matters, not the air temp.
• Shade cloth over a raised bed in a Houston August is not overkill. It's the difference between tomatoes setting fruit and tomatoes just standing there.

Shop Soil Thermometers

Answered by Todd Farber, Texas A&M Horticulture Grad & Co-Owner of Garden Guy  ·  📍 Sugar Land, TX