So I’ve got two zones with the advanced settings adjusted for my particular yard for my summer Bermuda grass.
Last month I planted my winter rye grass and used a fixed schedule to water several times a day. Now that my rye grass is established I would like to switch to a flex daily schedule for cool season grass. However, I don’t see a way to do this without overwriting all of my advanced zone settings that I use for the warm season grass. I don’t want to lose these settings or have to re-enter them next summer.
There must be something I’m missing. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Cool Season Grass vs Warm Season Grass is the type of grass you have, not the time of year you’re using it. Bermuda is definitely a Warm Season grass doing fine in the South and not so great in the North.
I would not change the actual zone properties you have, except for root depth, where newly seeded grass or sod can be set to a lower depth than established grass.
I change from warm season (Bermuda) to cool season (rye) every year, and adjust the root depth a tad. The only parameters it changes are the ones it needs to for the different types of grass.
When I overseed, once the grass has sprouted, I stop my fixed schedules and let Flex Daily take over. I start the root depth at 2" so that it will keep the frequency up to once a day, then I slowly start moving the root depth down as the weeks pass. I don’t have a set regimen, but over the course of a month or so, I’ll get the root depth down to 5-6".
In the spring, when it is time to get the Bermuda back, I also bring the root depth to about 3", and over a month or so will take it back to 6" depth.
Surely you just edit the zone and change the grass type and then, in advanced settings, change the root depth.
An alternative would be to disable that schedule and recreate a new secondary schedule. You could then flick between them every six months and be happy that you can go back to your original summer based schedule.
I don’t have a winter crop, a separate grass in the winter. But while most people here in SC just quit watering after the first good freeze, I’ve heard it’s a good idea to keep the ground from getting too dry over the winter. The grass might not die if you don’t, but it will recover better if you do.
So I, using my Flex Daily schedule, change the Crop Coefficient for all my zones. The default value for my Centipede grass is 85%. If I lower that to 50%, it will only put down 59% as much water as it normally would for “live” grass, while my grass is dormant. Rain is still considered normally, but it uses less water and keeps the ground from drying out so much. Likewise, I change either the root depth or Allowed Depletion to about half the value (say AD changed from 50% to 25%). That doesn’t change how much water the lawn gets per week, but will water twice as often, which in winter, might only be once a week or so. I think that’s better than going maybe 2 weeks without water.
I make notes of the changes I’ve done, and put it in a Calendar reminder for March 15, about the time I’ll either go back to normal settings, or based on weather and conditions, wait a bit longer.
Not all that scientific (and I DO loves me my scientifics), but it seems to work.
