While Arizona is traditionally seen as a desert state with cactus, agave, and coyotes, one of the many perks we are able to enjoy year-round is the ability to have a lush green lawn. You may be asking yourself how this can be.
During the summer months, we use Bermuda grass because it tolerates our triple-digit temperatures. As both the daytime and night temperatures drop, the Bermuda will start to die and go dormant. In mid-September, the landscapers lowered the deck height of the mower and eventually scalped the Bermuda lawn, which helps to allow room for the winter ryegrass. The planting of the ryegrass is called overseeding because you are planting rye seed over the existing Bermuda. The general rule of thumb for when to plant the winter rye is when the temperatures at night are consistently around the 60-degree range.
Until the “first cut” of the lawn, the dog park will remain closed. We typically try to reopen the dog park around the third week of October. This, of course, all depends on Mother Nature providing us with the cooler temps needed to germinate the seed. There are times when a few more days are needed to obtain the quality lawn we’d like to have over our winter months.
Sometime next May, the winter ryegrass will naturally start to die off due to its inability to thrive outside of the milder Arizona winter months. Water and warmer temperatures will awaken your dormant Bermuda summer grass naturally, so there is no need to replant your summer lawn. There will be a time when the winter lawn and the summer lawn are not sure what to do (go dormant or return), as we often see our temperatures fluctuate in the spring between hot and cold as our weather transitions from one season to the other. Now, with this wealth of information, you will be able to both see and understand the transformation that the POA and golf course lawns go through over the next several weeks.