By Kyle Caldwell, Owner & Agronomist, Century Outdoor Services | Austin, TX
If you’ve lived in Lakeway for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that maintaining a healthy lawn here can be more challenging than it is in other parts of Central Texas. One yard can look lush and green while the lawn next door struggles with weeds, thinning grass, or yellow patches—even when both homeowners are watering regularly.
As the owner and Director of Agronomy at Century Outdoor Services, I’ve worked with hundreds of homeowners throughout Lakeway over the years. The unique combination of rocky limestone soils, mature live oak trees, intense summer heat, and watering restrictions creates challenges that require a different approach than many other Texas communities.
At Century Outdoor Services, we’re proud to be part of the Lakeway community. In addition to helping homeowners maintain healthier lawns, we’re also proud sponsors of the Lake Travis Cavalettes, supporting one of the area’s outstanding organizations and the students who represent our community so well.
The good news is that most lawn problems in Lakeway are predictable—and more importantly, they’re preventable. Once you understand what causes them, it’s much easier to keep your lawn healthy throughout the year.
In this guide, I’ll walk through the seven most common lawn problems I see in Lakeway and explain what homeowners can do to avoid them.
If I had to point to one issue that causes more lawn problems than anything else in Lakeway, it would be the soil.
Much of Lakeway is built on limestone, which naturally creates alkaline (high pH) soils. While your grass may have plenty of nutrients available in the soil, a high pH can prevent the roots from absorbing important elements such as iron, manganese, and other micronutrients.
That’s why many homeowners notice their lawn turning light green or yellow even though they’re fertilizing regularly.
One of the most common calls we receive is:
“My lawn looks unhealthy, but I’ve already fertilized it. What am I doing wrong?”
In many cases, the fertilizer isn’t the problem. The nutrients are there—they’re simply unavailable to the grass because of the soil chemistry.
High pH is extremely common throughout Lakeway, Bee Cave, and much of western Travis County, so it’s something we account for in every fertilization program we design.
Rather than simply applying the same fertilizer every visit, we adjust our applications throughout the year based on the seasonal needs of Central Texas turf and include specialty nutrients when they’re needed. This helps improve turf color, encourage stronger root development, and maintain healthier growth despite our naturally alkaline soils.
Healthy soil is the foundation of a healthy lawn, and understanding your soil is often the first step toward solving persistent lawn problems.
One thing that makes Lakeway beautiful is also one of the biggest challenges for maintaining a healthy lawn—our mature live oak trees.
When many of these neighborhoods were first developed, the trees were much smaller and allowed enough sunlight for Bermuda, St. Augustine, and Zoysia grass to thrive. Fast forward 20 or 30 years, and those same trees have created dense canopies that significantly reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the lawn.
I see this all the time when visiting properties. Homeowners often think their lawn has a disease or insect problem when, in reality, the grass simply isn’t receiving enough sunlight to stay healthy.
No amount of fertilizer or weed control can overcome a lack of sunlight.
Each turfgrass variety has different light requirements.
Bermuda Grass performs best with at least 7–8 hours of direct sunlight each day. If your lawn receives less than that, you’ll typically notice thinning turf, slower recovery, and more weeds invading open areas.
St. Augustine has traditionally been the preferred choice for shaded landscapes because it tolerates moderate shade better than Bermuda. However, it still needs several hours of filtered sunlight to remain healthy. In heavy shade, even St. Augustine will become thin and susceptible to insects and disease.
Zoysia has become increasingly popular throughout Lakeway over the past several years. Certain Zoysia varieties provide excellent density while tolerating significantly more shade than Bermuda. For many homeowners, it offers the best balance between appearance, durability, and shade tolerance.
You may have a shade issue if you notice:
Fortunately, there are several ways to improve shaded lawns.
Selective tree pruning can allow additional filtered sunlight to reach the turf without sacrificing the beauty of your mature trees. In some situations, raising the mowing height can also help grass develop a larger leaf blade and capture more available sunlight.
If the amount of shade has increased dramatically over the years, it may be worth considering whether your current grass variety is still the best fit for your property. We’ve helped many Lakeway homeowners transition from struggling Bermuda lawns to Zoysia in areas where shade has become too significant.
The important thing is recognizing that not every lawn problem can be solved with fertilizer or weed control. Sometimes the environment has changed, and your lawn needs a different strategy to stay healthy.
One of the biggest misconceptions I hear from homeowners is that if their lawn looks stressed during the summer, they simply need to water more often.
In reality, it’s usually the opposite.
Most lawns in Lakeway perform much better with deep, infrequent watering rather than short, daily irrigation cycles. Frequent, shallow watering encourages grass roots to stay near the surface, where they’re exposed to extreme heat and dry out much faster.
Our Central Texas summers are tough enough on turf. When roots remain shallow, your lawn becomes much more vulnerable to drought stress, insects, disease, and heat damage.
Many Lakeway properties have shallow soils over limestone, making proper irrigation even more important.
Water can run off quickly on sloped lawns instead of soaking into the root zone. If your irrigation system applies water faster than the soil can absorb it, much of that water ends up running down the driveway or into the street instead of benefiting your lawn.
I’ve seen homeowners increase their irrigation time, only to waste water because it never has a chance to penetrate the soil.
A better solution is often cycle-and-soak watering. Instead of running a zone for one long cycle, divide the total runtime into two or three shorter cycles with breaks in between. This allows the soil to absorb more water while reducing runoff.
Many Lakeway homeowners are limited by watering restrictions, so it’s important to make every irrigation cycle as effective as possible.
I recommend checking your irrigation system several times throughout the growing season to make sure:
Even a few broken or misaligned sprinkler heads can create dry spots that are often mistaken for disease or insect damage.
Improper irrigation can show up in several ways, including:
A properly watered lawn develops deeper roots, making it more resilient during periods of extreme heat and drought.
At Century Outdoor Services, we often evaluate irrigation practices when diagnosing lawn problems because watering is one of the biggest factors affecting turf health. Even the best fertilization and weed control program can’t overcome poor irrigation practices.
If you’re unsure whether your lawn is receiving the right amount of water, a simple irrigation inspection can often identify issues before they become expensive problems.
One of the most frustrating calls we receive during the summer starts with, “My lawn looked great a few weeks ago, and now it’s covered in weeds.”
Unfortunately, that’s exactly how many of our summer weeds behave here in Lakeway.
By the time homeowners notice them, they’ve often been growing for several weeks. Warm temperatures, occasional summer rain, and thinner turf create the perfect conditions for weeds to spread quickly.
The good news is that most of these weeds can be managed—but the best approach is preventing them before they ever emerge.
While every lawn is different, these are some of the weeds we treat most often throughout Lakeway and the surrounding area.
Spurge is probably my least favorite summer weed.
It grows incredibly fast, spreads low across the ground, and produces thousands of seeds in a very short period of time. Once it becomes established, it can quickly take over thin areas of the lawn.
The challenge with spurge is timing. During the hottest part of summer, many herbicides that effectively control it can also stress or damage desirable turf if applied incorrectly. That’s why prevention and early treatment are so important.
Nutsedge isn’t actually a grass—it’s a sedge—and it behaves very differently than most weeds.
It typically appears after periods of heavy rainfall or excessive irrigation and grows much faster than the surrounding turf. One of the biggest mistakes homeowners make is repeatedly pulling it by hand. While that removes the top growth, the underground tubers often remain, allowing the plant to return.
Proper control requires specialty herbicides and, in many cases, multiple treatments.
Dallisgrass is one of the most difficult perennial grassy weeds we encounter in Central Texas.
Unlike many broadleaf weeds, there isn’t a simple selective product that removes mature Dallisgrass without affecting the surrounding turf. Control often requires patience and a long-term management strategy.
The best defense is maintaining a thick, healthy lawn that leaves very little room for Dallisgrass to establish in the first place.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that weed control is all about spraying herbicides.
In reality, healthy turf is your lawn’s first line of defense.
When your grass is dense and actively growing, it shades the soil, competes for water and nutrients, and makes it much harder for weed seeds to germinate. On the other hand, lawns that are stressed from shade, poor irrigation, insects, or nutrient deficiencies leave open space where weeds can quickly move in.
That’s why our fertilization and weed control program is designed to do more than simply eliminate weeds. Every application is focused on building a thicker, healthier lawn that naturally resists future weed problems.
If there’s one piece of advice I could give every Lakeway homeowner, it’s this:
Don’t wait until weeds are everywhere.
Pre-emergent herbicides applied at the right time of year stop many annual weeds before they ever break through the soil surface. Combined with proper fertilization and healthy turf management, they dramatically reduce weed pressure throughout the year.
It’s far easier—and often less expensive—to prevent weeds than it is to fight a lawn that’s already been overtaken.
During the hottest part of the summer, one of the first assumptions homeowners make when they see brown grass is that their lawn simply needs more water.
While drought stress is certainly possible, there’s another culprit we find regularly in Lakeway lawns: chinch bugs.
Chinch bugs are tiny insects that feed by piercing grass blades and stems, removing moisture while injecting toxins into the plant. The result is grass that begins to yellow, then quickly turns brown and dies if left untreated.
St. Augustine lawns are especially susceptible, although we occasionally find chinch bug activity in Zoysia as well.
Lakeway’s long stretches of hot, dry weather create ideal conditions for chinch bugs. They thrive in stressed turf, especially lawns that receive intense afternoon sun or have inconsistent irrigation.
Unlike diseases, chinch bug damage often develops in sunny areas first and continues to spread outward as the population grows.
One of the biggest mistakes homeowners make is increasing irrigation, hoping the lawn will recover. Unfortunately, extra water won’t stop insects from feeding.
While the symptoms can look similar at first, there are a few clues.
Drought stress often causes:
Chinch bug damage often includes:
If you’re unsure which problem you’re dealing with, it’s important to identify the cause before applying any treatment. Treating for drought when insects are the real issue only delays recovery.
One advantage of our nine-round lawn care program is that every visit includes an inspection of the lawn—not just an application.
Our technicians are trained to look for early signs of insect activity, disease pressure, and other developing issues before they become widespread. Catching chinch bugs early often means less damage, faster recovery, and fewer costly repairs.
As an agronomist, I’ve learned that successful lawn care isn’t just about applying products—it’s about recognizing problems early and using the right solution at the right time.
While our summers are often hot and dry, periods of heavy rainfall followed by warm, humid weather can create ideal conditions for lawn diseases.
Every year, we receive calls from homeowners who say, “My lawn looked great last week, and now there are large brown areas showing up everywhere.”
In many cases, those symptoms aren’t caused by insects or lack of water at all—they’re caused by fungal diseases.
Two diseases account for the majority of the lawn disease issues we diagnose in Central Texas.
Brown Patch is most common during the cooler, humid months of spring and fall. It typically appears as circular brown patches that can expand rapidly when moisture levels remain high.
St. Augustine is especially susceptible, although Zoysia can also be affected under the right conditions.
Take-All Root Rot is one of the most challenging diseases we treat because the symptoms often resemble nutrient deficiencies or drought stress.
This disease attacks the root system, reducing the turf’s ability to absorb water and nutrients. Homeowners often respond by adding more fertilizer or increasing irrigation, but neither addresses the underlying problem.
Lakeway’s naturally alkaline soils can make lawns more susceptible to Take-All Root Rot, which is one reason proper soil management plays such an important role in maintaining healthy turf.
While no lawn is completely immune, homeowners can significantly reduce the risk of disease by following a few simple practices:
Healthy turf is always more resistant to disease than stressed turf.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that healthy lawns don’t just experience fewer problems—they recover much faster when problems do occur.
That’s why our lawn care program focuses on the overall health of the turf throughout the year instead of simply reacting when issues appear.
When your lawn has a strong root system, balanced nutrition, and consistent care, it’s much better equipped to withstand insects, disease, drought, and the extreme weather conditions we experience here in Lakeway.
One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is that more fertilizer equals a better lawn.
The truth is, it’s not just about how much fertilizer you apply—it’s about applying the right nutrients at the right time of year.
Here in Lakeway, our lawns go through several different growth stages throughout the year. The nutritional needs of Bermuda, Zoysia, and St. Augustine grass change as soil temperatures, rainfall, and weather conditions change.
That’s why a one-size-fits-all fertilizer program rarely delivers the best results.
As soil temperatures begin to warm in the spring, your lawn starts coming out of dormancy and producing new growth.
This is the time to encourage healthy root development while preventing summer weeds before they become a problem. Proper spring fertilization helps the lawn green up naturally and prepares it for the stress of the Texas summer.
Summer is often when homeowners think they should apply the most fertilizer, but that’s not always the case.
During periods of extreme heat, lawns can become stressed. Applying excessive nitrogen at the wrong time may encourage lush top growth when the grass is already struggling with high temperatures and limited rainfall.
Instead, our focus shifts to maintaining overall turf health while continuing to monitor for weeds, insects, and disease.
Many homeowners think lawn care ends when summer is over.
In reality, fall is one of the most important times of the year.
This is when we apply fall pre-emergent herbicides to help prevent many winter weeds before they germinate. We also continue strengthening the lawn as growth begins to slow, setting it up for a healthier start the following spring.
Skipping fall treatments often means fighting weeds all winter and into early spring.
Even though Bermuda and Zoysia are dormant during the winter, there’s still plenty happening beneath the surface.
Winter is an excellent time to monitor for weeds, inspect for disease or insect activity, and prepare the lawn for the upcoming growing season.
A healthy lawn isn’t built in one visit—it’s built through consistent care throughout the entire year.
That’s why our nine-round fertilization and weed control program is designed to address the changing needs of Central Texas lawns in every season. Each visit builds on the previous one, helping homeowners stay ahead of weeds, insects, diseases, and seasonal stress instead of reacting after problems develop.
Many Lakeway lawns have naturally alkaline (high pH) soils. High pH can limit your lawn’s ability to absorb important nutrients like iron, even when they’re present in the soil. Proper fertilization and micronutrient management are often the solution.
It depends on your property. Bermuda performs best in full sun, Zoysia offers an excellent balance of durability and shade tolerance, and St. Augustine remains a good choice for moderately shaded lawns. The right grass depends on how much sunlight your lawn receives each day.
Most lawns benefit from deep, infrequent watering rather than short daily irrigation cycles. Watering should also be adjusted throughout the year based on temperatures, rainfall, and local watering restrictions.
Most summer weeds are easiest to control before they emerge. Maintaining a thick, healthy lawn with timely pre-emergent applications greatly reduces weed pressure compared to relying only on post-emergent herbicides.
Brown patches can be caused by several factors, including chinch bugs, lawn disease, drought stress, or irrigation problems. Proper diagnosis is important because each issue requires a different solution.
A professionally managed lawn care program provides more than fertilizer. It includes ongoing monitoring for weeds, insects, diseases, and nutrient deficiencies while adjusting treatments throughout the year based on seasonal conditions. This proactive approach helps prevent problems before they become expensive to fix.
Lakeway is one of the most beautiful communities in Central Texas, but it’s also one of the most challenging places to grow and maintain a healthy lawn. From rocky limestone soils and mature oak trees to intense summer heat and watering restrictions, every property has its own unique challenges.
At Century Outdoor Services, we’ve been helping homeowners throughout Lakeway and the surrounding communities maintain greener, healthier lawns since 2013. Our locally owned and operated company specializes in fertilization, weed control, lawn insects, lawn diseases, liquid aeration, and shrub and tree care—all designed specifically for the growing conditions we experience here in Central Texas.
As proud supporters of the Lakeway community, including our sponsorship of the Lake Travis Cavalettes, we’re committed to helping our neighbors enjoy lawns they can be proud of.
If you’re ready for a healthier, weed-free lawn backed by local expertise and a 100% satisfaction guarantee, we’d love the opportunity to earn your business.
For Weed Control and Fertilization, Aeration, and Moisture Manager, the price is calculated by every 1,000 ft². Click here to see how we determine our prices.
If you’d like to receive an estimate, you can call us at (512) 786-1694 or send us a quick message.
No, Century does not require contracts for residential services. We set up a Service Agreement for your property based on the services accepted. This agreement requests at least a 24-hour notice of cancellation of service.
We’ve provided the most reliable weed control & fertilization to customers in Austin, Bee Cave, Dripping Springs, and nearby areas in Texas since 2013.
