Jonie's 2022 Soil Test

[jochickabee]

Hello friends,

Thank you in advance for your wonderful expert advice.

My main goal is to replace my current lawn with a more drought tolerant low-no mow turf.
I have been considering UC Verde.

I just moved in, and most of my grass has dried up due to lack of watering (delay in sprinkler repair). I believe it was Marathon grass.

For my parkway - I am considering Silver Carpet (Dymondia Margaretae).

Location: NE Torrance (Los Angeles) (Expansive soils area https://www.torranceca.gov/home/showpu ... 071700000t)
Lawn Size: < 1000 sq ft

[bpgreen]

I can't help with the soil test or the silver carpet, but I'll point out that Buffalo grass needs very little water to live once it's established, but you'll need to water it every day for the first week or so, then cut back. If I remember correctly, I watered a couple of times a week for 3 weeks or so, then once a week for a few more weeks. It has been really dry this year and I can't water, but I'm hoping it'll survive. I planted Buffalo grass (I forget the variety) and blue grama last year.

If you have questions about Buffalo grass, I'll be happy to answer what I can (I'm fairly new to growing it, but I read a lot about it over the years). But I don't want to goal the soil interpretation, so if you have additional questions, it would be better to start a new thread.

[bpgreen]

Also, you need to post a link to this in the soil interpretation thread.

[jochickabee]

Thanks for the tips bpgreen.

My main concern with buffalo is how much it will brown during the winter for my area.

How has yours held up?

[bpgreen]

I just planted it last year. Thia year has been so dry that even the buffalo grass is dormant. At least I hope it got established enough last year that it's dormant and not dead.

[bpgreen]

I just noticed that the subject of your first post says soil test, but you didn't post one.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Hi Jonie, glad to see you here.
I've been working with Jonie via email from Houzz for several weeks. When she showed up with the LL soil test, I referred her here, of course. One thing that is very pertinent to her situation is that her weather is entirely dictated by sea breezes from the Pacific. Torrance is a beach community and she lives on the east side of it about 4 miles from 75 degree ocean. Her summer temps run in the 70s to 80s. She could probably get away with Marathon fescue, but I still discourage it as inappropriate for her area of California.
Jonie, how would your characterize your soil as far as clay, sand, and loam?

[jochickabee]

Thanks David! My soil is probably sandy based in the mason jar test. It’s quite hard. And I’ve learned (from David) to shampoo it. Technically I’m in a clay area but that didn’t seem the case with the mason jar test. Unless my sampling was off

[MorpheusPA]

Sorry for the delay here, work's been extremely busy. I have a little time over lunch today where nobody's yelling for an audit or document though!

Buffalo grass isn't what I'd call demanding. That's unfortunate, because you have nice soil. It's kind of calcium-heavy, but that's certainly not an issue.

Seriously, of the major nutrients, what shows a slight negative is actually incorrect. It's being masked by the calcium. Phosphorus is very high, you won't need any for the foreseeable future (probably a century or so). All the saturations are perfect.

Boron, manganese, zinc...all perfect. I might want a hair more copper, but I'm not motivated enough to bother. Iron might not produce the best color at your pH, but it's not short, and there's no reason to go into hysterics about it.

Recommendations:

Plant Buffalo grass and enjoy.

[jochickabee]

Thank you so much! I won’t make the window to plant this year. I will try early spring and report back!