The Louisiana Lawn Calendar: Feeding and Watering by the Season

Nearly every lawn up here in North Louisiana is a warm-season grass — St. Augustine, centipede, Bermuda, or zoysia. These grasses wake up in spring, grow hard all summer, and go dormant and brown when it turns cold. Everything below follows that rhythm. One note before we start: centipede is the easygoing one and wants very little feeding, while St. Augustine and Bermuda are the hungry ones. Know your grass and you're halfway home.

Here's the year, season by season.

Winter (December – February): Rest and Plan

Your grass is dormant, and the worst thing you can do is wake it up early. Do not fertilize. Putting nitrogen on dormant or barely-green turf just feeds cool-season weeds and sets you up for fungal disease and winter kill when a cold snap returns.

Test your soil. This is the best time of year for it. Pull samples four to six inches deep from several spots, mix them, and take a pint to your parish extension office. The results tell you exactly what your lawn needs come spring — no guessing.

Lime if needed. Acidic soil is the single most common lawn problem in Louisiana. If your soil test calls for lime, fall and winter are the time to spread it, since it takes months to work into the soil and correct the pH. Water rarely. Outside the summer months, our rainfall usually more than covers what dormant grass needs. Only water during an unusually long, dry, windy stretch to keep the lawn from drying out completely.

Spring (March – May): Wake Up — But Don't Rush It

This is where most folks get impatient. The lawn starts greening in spots and the urge to fertilize is strong. Resist it.

Wait for full green-up. Don't feed until the grass is uniformly green and actively growing, with warm nights to match. For most of Louisiana that's early to mid-April, and up here in the northern parishes you're on the later end of that window. Fertilizing too early just feeds weeds and pushes soft, disease-prone growth.

Make your main feeding now. Use a complete fertilizer based on your soil test, and never more than one pound of actual nitrogen per 1,000 square feet in a single application. A slow-release product is gentler and longer-lasting. Centipede lawns usually need just one light feeding in April and nothing more all year. St. Augustine, Bermuda, and zoysia will take the nitrogen and reward you with color. Dethatch or aerate if you need to. Mid-to-late spring (April through June) is the window, while the grass has time to recover before summer heat. Start the deep-and-infrequent habit. Spring rain usually carries the load, so only supplement during a genuine dry spell — but when you do water, water deeply to train the roots downward.

Summer (June – August): Peak Growth, Peak Water

These are the only months our rainfall reliably falls short of what the grass uses, so this is when watering actually earns its keep.

Aim for about one inch of water per week, counting rainfall. Skip a week when the rain beats you to it. Water deep and infrequent. A long, soaking watering a couple times a week grows deep, drought-tough roots. Light daily sprinkling does the opposite — shallow roots that wilt the moment you skip a day. To learn your sprinkler, set out a few straight-sided cans (a tuna can works) and time how long it takes to collect an inch. Water early — 4 to 8 in the morning. That lets the blades dry as the day warms. Evening and late-afternoon watering leaves grass wet overnight, which is an open invitation to fungal disease. Go easy on fertilizer. A hungry St. Augustine or Bermuda lawn can take a light midsummer feeding if color is fading, but stay at or under that one-pound-of-nitrogen rule. Centipede generally needs nothing. Don't push lush growth heading into fall. Read the grass. A bluish-gray cast, folded blades, or footprints that linger after you walk across all mean it's thirsty.

Fall (September – November): Put the Spreader Away

This is the season of the single biggest mistake — that "fall feeding" or "winterizer" with nitrogen in it. For our southern warm-season lawns, that's exactly backward.

Stop the nitrogen. Stimulating fall growth with nitrogen leads straight to brown patch and large patch disease and makes the grass more likely to winter-kill. Set the nitrogen spreader aside until spring.

The one thing to apply is potash. A potassium-only product such as muriate of potash (0-0-60) put down in September or October strengthens the grass for winter and helps it resist disease and cold — without forcing tender new growth.

Mind large patch. Fall's mild nights (in that 60–75 degree range) are prime disease weather, especially on St. Augustine. Your best defenses are morning-only watering, good drainage, and that restraint on nitrogen. Ease off the water. Keep watering as needed while the grass is still growing, then taper as nights drop into the 50s and growth slows toward dormancy.

Soil test again. Fall is the ideal time to test and to lime, setting up next spring before the lawn even knows it.

The Short Version

Feed in April, water deep and early through summer, give it potash — not nitrogen — in fall, and let it rest in winter. Test your soil twice a year and follow what it tells you. That's a Louisiana lawn in a nutshell.

We keep the garden center stocked for every season of this — soil test bags, the right fertilizers and potash for fall, sprinklers and hoses, and lime when your soil calls for it. Bring us your grass type and your soil test results and we'll get you matched up with exactly what you need, nothing you don't. Stop in at Boone & Co., 202 Newton Street, Saint Joseph. We'll help you keep it green the easy way.