Hi Jean. Pasadena should be fine for buffalo grass IF, and ONLY IF, you have full sun. It is not going to do well in the shadow of anything. Here is a picture of a select variety of buffalo grass growing on a hell strip in full sun.

But do you see that mailbox at the other end of the strip. Here's a close up of the grass next to that.

This area gets full afternoon sun for half the day. That's not enough sun. If you have trees, shrubs, fences, or buildings casting a shadow on the ground, buffalo grass will not grow there.

The only grass appropriate to the Pasadena climate that will grow in the shade is St Augustine. Many people believe St Aug is a water hog, but it doesn't have to be. Those other people are just doing it wrong. Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering all lawns, and especially St Augustine. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. You should measure your sprinkler system by placing cat food or tuna cans around the yard and time how long it takes to fill all the cans. That will be your watering time from now on. As for frequency, this time of year you should be watering once a month. When it warms into the 70s, change to once every 3 weeks. With temps in the 80s, go to once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. On the few days with temps in the 100s, you can water once every 5 days.

Also St Augustine should be mowed twice a month at the mower's highest setting for the best performance and weed control. When managed like that it will control bermuda and most other grassy weeds. There are a few which should be pulled by hand, but otherwise, St Augustine is a low-hassle turf.

As for fertilizer, I've been using nothing but organic fertilizer on my lawns since 2002, so I know that works. Regardless, fertilize for the first time in late May (Memorial Day is a good memory jogger). Next is Labor Day and then Thanksgiving. If you want to go with organic fertilizer, I can help you with some choices. Let me know. Never use a weed-n-feed product. When you want to fertilize, use a fertilizer. When you want to kill weeds, use a weed killer. Weed killer typically should go down in mid April about 6 weeks before the first fertilizer. Timing is important.

Also, if your buffalo is in full sun, then let me know and I'll ask some more questions. If it is full sun, then post a picture of the yard from across the street.

Thanks. I do have shade behind the garage, especially during the winter time. Glad to know St Augustine is not a water hog. We are on a 2 days watering and only 10 min each station. I think I will restart using St Augustine. If I can't make 1" at one time, can 2 times per week works?

I am not particular about fertilizer, any will do and cheapest. Any recommendations?

I really appreciate your insight into my backyard.

Jean

Water rationing is going to be the problem with maintaining a green lawn in SoCal. So do I understand that you can only water 2 days per week? What does 10 minutes per station mean? I have a hose with a sprinkler on it. What would that mean with 10 minutes per station?

If you look at the ingredients for organic fertilizers they include materials like soybean meal, corn meal, corn gluten meal, alfalfa meal, wheat meal (flour), cottonseed meal, etc., along with animal byproducts like poultry manure, fish byproducts, feather meal, and some others. The key to these materials is that they all contain protein. The animal products are higher in protein than the grains, but the grains work very well all by themselves. When I started doing organic I bought ordinary corn meal in 50-pound bags at my local feed store. I used corn not knowing anything more about the protein content, but it was, by far, the cheapest bag of anything they had at the time at $3.00. The application rate I used was 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet. That's about the same as recommended on the commercially bagged organic fertilizers. As it turns out, corn meal is one of the lowest protein content grains, so a better app rate is 15 to 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Later I switched to alfalfa pellets, which have more protein. Currently I'm using both corn, $10 today, and alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) at $15 for 50 pounds. The way these work as a fertilizer is that the grains are decomposed by microbes living in the soil. Other microbes decompose the first microbes, and the process continues through literally 10s of thousands of species of microbes until the end product is plant food. Mother Nature has been perfecting this process for billions of years. Every animal and plant that dies contributes to the process. In the garden once the soil temperature is higher than 50 degrees, the process takes 3 weeks to go from fresh corn meal to plant food. Then you'll see the improvement in color, density, and growth. Here is a picture showing the result of alfalfa pellets in a zoysia lawn.

The alfalfa pellets were applied in mid May and the picture was taken in mid June. Thanks to mrmumbles for posting this picture about 12 years ago.

10 min setting for each automatic irrigation station.

I have the rain bird sprinkler heads.

I'm still not clear. Is 10 minutes mandated by the watering restrictions? Or is 10 minutes what you set your sprinklers to?

10 min is mandated by the water restriction.

Thank you very much for your advice. Sorry I have been not as communicative, my mom was just operated on, and I am taking care of her.

Do you know you cannot buy St Augustine sod in California. I wonder why?

Keep looking.

Green Thumb Nursery