Lawn Care Services in Austin and Central Texas
Most lawn problems around Austin come down to three things done at the wrong setting: mowing height, watering depth, and feeding a lawn that is dormant. Get those right for your grass type and the lawn largely takes care of itself. Get them wrong and no amount of product fixes it.
We maintain lawns across Austin, Cedar Park, Leander, Round Rock and the surrounding towns. Here is what actually matters in this climate.
Know your grass, because everything follows from it
Central Texas lawns are almost entirely warm-season grasses, and each wants a different mowing height. Cutting St. Augustine at Bermuda height is the single most common reason a lawn thins and lets weeds in.
St. Augustine
The most common lawn here, and the one that tolerates shade best. Wants a high cut, roughly 3 to 4 inches. Scalping it exposes the runners and invites weeds. Prone to chinch bugs in hot sun and to take-all root rot in spring.
Bermuda
Full sun, high traffic, and the most drought-hardy of the common choices. Wants a low cut, roughly 1 to 2 inches, and needs frequent mowing to stay dense. Will not tolerate the shade St. Augustine handles.
Zoysia and Buffalo
Zoysia sits between the two at 1.5 to 2.5 inches and handles moderate shade. Buffalo is the native option: lowest water need of the group, goes dormant brown in deep drought, and dislikes heavy traffic and shade.
The rule that applies to all of them: never remove more than a third of the blade in one cut. Mowing a tall lawn short in one pass shocks it, and in a Texas July that shock is often fatal.
Water deep and rarely, not a little every day
Shallow daily watering trains roots to stay at the surface, where they cook in summer. Deep, infrequent watering pushes roots down where the soil stays cooler and holds moisture. Roughly an inch a week, delivered in one or two sessions, beats fifteen minutes every evening.
This aligns with what Austin allows anyway: assigned watering days by address and no midday watering. On blackland clay, split each session into shorter cycles with soak time between them, or most of the water runs off. See irrigation for how to set that up, and core aeration for why compacted soil defeats even correct watering.
Feed on the calendar, not on impulse
Warm-season grass only uses fertilizer while it is actively growing. Feeding dormant grass in winter feeds the weeds instead. The first feeding goes in after the lawn has fully greened up in spring, not at the first warm week. The last one should land roughly six weeks before the first frost, which in Austin usually means early to mid October. Later than that and you push tender growth into a freeze.
A soil test is worth doing once. Central Texas soils are typically alkaline, which locks up iron and produces yellowing that looks like a nitrogen problem but is not. Adding more nitrogen to an iron problem makes it worse.
The problems we actually get called for
Chinch bugs
St. Augustine, hot sunny areas, mid to late summer. Looks like drought damage that does not recover after watering, spreading in irregular patches. If watering a brown area for a week changes nothing, suspect chinch bugs before adding more water.
Take-all root rot
Spring, St. Augustine, yellowing patches with roots that pull up easily and look dark. Often mistaken for drought or fertilizer burn. Made worse by high nitrogen and by scalping. Compost top-dressing helps more than fungicide does.
Large patch / brown patch
Fungal, appears in cool wet stretches of fall and spring as roughly circular brown rings. Watering in the evening keeps blades wet overnight and feeds it. Water in the early morning instead.
Grubs
Grass lifts like carpet because roots have been eaten. Usually noticed in late summer and early fall. Confirm by pulling back a section before treating, since the damage looks similar to several other problems.
More detail on both in how to handle chinch bugs and grubs.
Weed control is a timing problem
Once a weed is visible you are already reacting. The leverage is in pre-emergent, applied before germination: late winter for summer weeds like crabgrass, and early fall for winter weeds like poa annua. Miss those two windows and the rest of the year is spot-treating.
A dense lawn cut at the right height is still the best weed control there is. Most persistent weed problems around Austin are really mowing-height problems wearing a disguise.
What a maintenance plan covers
Recurring mowing at the correct height for your grass, edging, bed care, seasonal cleanups, fertilization on the right calendar, pre-emergent in both windows, and monitoring for the pest and disease patterns above. We also handle core aeration, irrigation, tree care and full landscape work when the lawn is only part of the job.
Where we work
Austin · Cedar Park · Leander · Round Rock · Georgetown · Pflugerville · Hutto · Bee Cave · Brushy Creek · Liberty Hill · Lago Vista
Frequently asked questions
How often should an Austin lawn be mowed?
Through the growing season, roughly weekly for St. Augustine and more often for Bermuda, which grows faster and needs frequent cutting to stay dense. The rule that matters more than frequency is never removing more than a third of the blade in one cut.
What height should I cut St. Augustine?
Three to four inches. Cutting it at Bermuda height, one to two inches, is the single most common cause of thinning lawns in Central Texas, because it exposes the runners and lets weeds into the gaps.
When should I fertilize a Texas lawn?
After full green-up in spring, not at the first warm week, and again with a final feeding roughly six weeks before the first frost, which in Austin usually means early to mid October. Feeding a dormant lawn in winter mostly feeds the weeds.
Why is my lawn brown even though I water it?
Usually compacted soil, chinch bugs or mowing height rather than a water shortage. If a brown area does not recover after a week of thorough watering, stop adding water and look for insects or compaction instead.
Do you service my area?
We work across Austin, Cedar Park, Leander, Round Rock, Georgetown, Pflugerville, Hutto, Bee Cave, Brushy Creek, Liberty Hill and Lago Vista.
Get a lawn care quote
Tell us your grass type and what the lawn is doing. If you do not know the grass type, send a photo and we will tell you.