Watering a lawn in North Alabama
How much water a lawn here actually needs, how to measure what your sprinkler puts down, and why a forecast is not the same thing as water in the ground.
Read the watering guide
Written for North Alabama, not for lawns in general
Lawn and property care guide
Watering, grass types, mowing heights, weeds, soil, disease and the seasonal calendar — written for the climate and the soil we actually work in, by people who look after properties in Marshall County every week.
Why this exists
Most lawn advice online is written for somewhere else
North Alabama sits in the transition zone. Our summers are hot enough to stress cool-season grasses and our winters are cold enough to stress warm-season ones, which means advice written for the Gulf Coast or for the Midwest is wrong here in opposite directions.
Everything in this guide is written for this climate and this soil. Where there is a horticultural baseline it is the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, and every article carries the date a person last checked it. Where a question genuinely needs somebody to look at the property, the article says so rather than guessing, because a wrong answer about turf usually costs a season.
There is also an assistant on this website that answers from the same material. If you would rather ask a question than read an article, the chat button in the corner of every page will find the right answer or tell you honestly that it does not have one.
The lawn itself
Water, height, species and feeding
The five grasses grown in North Alabama
How to tell Bermuda, zoysia, centipede, St. Augustine and tall fescue apart, what each one is good at, and which suits sun, shade, children and dogs.
Read the grass types guideMowing heights and the one-third rule
What height each grass grown in North Alabama should be cut, why the one-third rule sets the mowing interval, and what scalping actually costs a lawn.
Read the mowing heights guideFertilizer, lime and soil testing
Why a soil test comes before anything else, when each grass grown here is fed, and what a lawn actually gains from lime.
Read the fertilizer and soil testing guideThe North Alabama lawn care year
What matters in each season here, from dormancy and pre-emergent timing through green-up, summer stress and fall cleanup.
Read the seasonal calendarProblems and repairs
When something has gone wrong
Why a lawn goes brown, yellow, thin or patchy
The patterns that tell drought from disease from insect damage from mower damage, and the point at which guessing costs more than a visit.
Read the brown or thin lawn guideWeeds, and why timing beats effort
The two pre-emergent windows that decide most of the year, the weeds that show up in Marshall County, and why a thick lawn is the only permanent control.
Read the weeds and pre-emergent guideDisease and insects in a North Alabama lawn
What large patch, spring dead spot, grubs and armyworms look like here, how fast each one moves, and why a description is never a diagnosis.
Read the disease and pests guideDrought, heat stress and dormancy
How to tell a dormant lawn from a dead one, what heat actually does to turf here, and what is worth doing when the water runs short.
Read the drought and dormancy guideShade, drainage, compaction and thatch
The site problems that defeat everything else: too little light, water that will not leave, soil that has been squeezed flat, and a thatch layer that keeps roots out of the ground.
Read the soil and site guideEstablishing new sod and new seed
The one situation where frequent shallow watering is correct, how long rooting actually takes, and why soil preparation decides the next ten years.
Read the new sod and seed guideBeds, borders and the rest of the property
Everything that is not the lawn
Leaves, fall cleanup and getting a property through winter
Why a heavy leaf layer costs a lawn its spring, what a cleanup actually covers, and the jobs that are easier once the trees are bare.
Read the fall and winter guideAfter a storm: a property recovery checklist
What to leave alone, what to photograph, and the order to work through a property after severe weather in North Alabama.
Read the storm cleanup checklistLawns with children and dogs on them
Re-entry after a treatment, urine spots, the grasses that take hard use, and the things worth telling a crew before they arrive.
Read the pets and children guideWorking with us
Planning the work
Planning maintenance for a commercial or apartment property
What a managed property actually needs through the year, how to compare quotes that are not comparing the same work, and the questions worth asking first.
Read the commercial property guideOne honest caveat
A guide is not an inspection
Several lawn problems look identical from a photograph, let alone from a description. Brown circles can be disease, insect damage, a dry sprinkler zone or something that was spilled, and treating the wrong one costs the treatment and the season. These 15 articles will tell you what is worth checking and what the patterns usually mean. They will not tell you what you have.
When something is spreading, when it has come back in the same place more than once, when more than one cause would explain it, or when the next step would be a treatment, that is the point to have somebody stand on the lawn. Estimates are free, so it costs nothing but an appointment — request one or call (256) 506-9006.
Service area
Serving Marshall County and the surrounding area
Crews run out of Guntersville and work across the county all week. These are the communities we look after.
- ServingGuntersville
- ServingAlbertville
- ServingArab
- ServingBoaz
- ServingSardis City
- ServingDouglas
- ServingGrant
- ServingHorton
- ServingSnead
Properties throughout Marshall County are looked after by crews running out of 5378 AL Highway 79 South in Guntersville.
HRH Lawn Care Services
Let us come and look at it
A quote costs nothing. Call and we will come out, walk the property with you, and give you a fair price and an honest answer about what it actually needs.