From the HOA board’s landscape subcommittee:
September and the end of summer is at hand, at least calendar-wise, and our snowbirds are setting their sights on getting back to the desert for “the season.” Our landscape maintenance personnel are also making plans that might interest our year-round residents as well as part-timers.
During September, each week will see a dialing back of irrigation to as little as two minutes per application (Monday thru Saturday). The decrease will help the Bermuda grass go dormant, so some increased browning-out will be apparent. In concert with water reduction will be a mowing schedule that removes an additional 1/2 inch or so of the lawn thickness each week. By the end of September, we will be ready for an easy scalping of the lawn areas in preparation for over-seeding in early October.
The water that we have saved in September will be used to germinate and nourish the annual ryegrass that will be sown during early October.
Our bottle brush trees have grown unfettered for two years now so the time has come to prune them to prevent storm damage this winter. These are weak and brittle trees full of sucker-growth resulting from having been “poodled” during their early years of growth. Our landscaper rescued them from the poodle shape but the damage had been done. The bottle brush pruning will start at the east pool and move west from there.
Our citrus trees will be pruned in November and the old fruit removed long before then.
— Carl Toland