When it comes to your lawn, make sure to approach these suggestions with suspicion

In 51 years of helping North Texas gardeners with their lawns, landscapes and gardens, I’ve heard a lot of wild-eyed tales, and I’m going to bring a few of the most memorable out into the light of day in the hopes that people will give them all up once and for all.

(Just so there can be no question: I do not agree with the bold-faced statements that follow and I will explain why.)

Mowing high will keep the grass healthier and it will save water in the process.

Somehow that legend persists. The problem is that tall grass soon becomes weak grass. It quits producing runners and it stops spreading across the surface of the soil. Its blades compete for the available sunlight and end up growing upright. The sun hits the bare ground and dries it out more quickly. Weeds move in, and they use disproportionate amounts of water.

The next time you see tufts of bermudagrass growing out of cracks in an alleyway, where tires run over them many times daily, notice how low and dense that grass is. Then go look at grass that’s been mowed higher than recommended. You’ll see the difference.

Overseeding a lawn with ryegrass for winter green color (when the permanent turf is dormant) will waste irrigation water.

No! It doesn’t necessarily have to. Of course, there are people who overwater even dormant lawns. Whether we use too much irrigation water in winter depends on the consumer, not the turfgrass. I live in a rural area where there are no restrictions about planting ryegrass. I have overseeded with rye for the past 35 years, and I water the rye no more than I would my permanent turf. Some winters I may not water for several weeks. There have been a few winters when I never ran the sprinklers at all. Other, drier winters, the sprinklers may run every week or two. But that’s to keep the roots of my permanent lawn healthy and vigorous. It really has nothing to do with the ryegrass.

Topping crape myrtles makes them bloom better, and it helps keep the plants shorter.

Topping actually takes away their first, and possibly their second, round of summer blooms. Topped crape myrtles often don’t bloom until August. You may have come to the same conclusion in the last few weeks as crape myrtles have been through this year’s bloom cycle. Plants that haven’t been pruned back by such hacking will typically be in full bloom by early to mid-June, with another flush of flowers just three or four weeks later. It’s not uncommon to have three and even four rounds of bloom in one summer season.

And their genetic predisposition to a certain maximum height is going to remain just the same whether you top them or not. A 20-foot-tall variety isn’t suddenly going to stop growing at 9 feet just because someone whacked it to fit beneath 9-foot eaves. It’s going to resume its growth to the top of the house – to the full 20 feet. But the bad news is that it will look unsightly as it grows.

It’s a good idea to prune the dead wood out of your Arizona ash, Indian hawthorns and waxleaf ligustrums.

In my opinion, that would be fruitless. Last February’s cold spell was brutal to many of our plant species, but these three have brought about more questions than most. To those who are considering hiring tree people to prune the dead wood out of their Arizona ash trees, I’ve decided to take the bold stand warning that “You’re still going to have an ash tree when it’s all said and done.” Ash trees are susceptible to several species of borers, most notably recently, the devastating Emerald Ash borer that has killed millions of ash trees in the Midwest. It’s now making its way into the Metroplex, and it’s only a matter of time until it gets all of ours. It’s not worth spending the money to try to milk a few more years out of the frozen specimens.

As for shrubs, most Metroplex Indian hawthorns were killed back to the snow line. It will take them years to come back to where they were before the freeze. And ligustrums I’ve been watching look like they’re very weak. I’m not sure many of them are going to regain their vigor. As nurseries restock this fall, you’d be better advised to replant.

Native plants are better because they’re used to Texas conditions.

If last February’s cold proved anything, it was the inaccuracy of that statement. Native Texas plants that were hurt by the cold: century plant (agave), several species of yuccas, Texas sage (ceniza), Texas mountain laurels, wax myrtles, several species of native ornamental grasses and, surprise of all surprises, even some of our native live oaks and Shumard red oaks. Just because a plant is native somewhere in Texas doesn’t guarantee that it will survive our weather (and soils) here in North Central Texas. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plant those plants. It’s just to say that adapted non-native plants need to be considered as well.

You can hear Neil Sperry on KLIF 570AM on Saturday afternoons 1-3 pm and on WBAP 820AM Sunday mornings 8-10 am. Join him at www.neilsperry.com and follow him on Facebook.

This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 5:30 AM.