Healthy Lawns and Smart Irrigation for your Lawn with Mike Faust

This is Craig with The Homeowner Show, live here from Pedro's with the Net Elite, my buddy Mike Faust. So glad you guys could join us for a live episode. We're gonna be talking all things landscaping. Share, like, do all the things on the YouTubes and the Facebooks. Subscribe, because we make content for you guys. How you doing, Mike?

Doing good, brother.

Yeah?

Yeah.

So you were, you were just telling me, uh, the last time you were on the show, you, you got a, you got a little phone call.

I did.

Yeah, what was that all about?

Thank you everyone watching The Homeowner Show. Um, I was doing a, a job just every day, you know, head in the, uh, head down, just working. And, uh, for some reason I asked the client like halfway through instead of at the beginning, and I was like, so how'd you hear about me? And we're like almost done. He was like, The Homeowner Show.

Oh, that's awesome.

So, like, being a part of your show made me like $5,000.

Dude, that makes everything worthwhile right there. That's the whole reason we wanted to do it.

Yeah. So, I mean, who knows how many other people saw me from here, but that's just the one person that had voiced it to me being sitting here with you. Yeah.

Oh, that's so cool. To me, it's just cool because it's like affirmation that people are actually listening. Because sometimes you're doing this and you're just like, you don't even know.

But I mean, regardless, I had a good time last time.

Hey, it's fun.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I, I'm actually really happy you're here because my lawn sucks right now. Yeah. Yeah. Is that everybody's experience in, in South Texas?

I mean, like, right now you're either spending a lot of money on water, right?

Yeah.

Or your yard sucks right now.

Or your yard sucks.

It's one of— yeah, that's it.

Well, I'm, I'm starting to hear from people that neighborhoods are starting to say, hey, we need to ration water in, in order to, you know, like, so that you'll have drinking water. So, like, what are, what are some ways that people can be strategic with their water usage in order to preserve their lawn? Because if they don't, I mean, like, it can die and then they'll have to replace it, right?

Yeah, I mean, so you are a professional at asking questions. Um, you know, the people still run their water even though they tell them not to do that, right? You know, of course you want to follow the guidelines of your HOA and whatnot, but to answer your question, can do a soaking process. So say you run your system for 15 minutes for zone 1.

Okay.

You can do 5 minutes in the morning, 5 minutes midday, 5 minutes again at the end of the day. So you still get your 15 minutes and you're soaking the root system. So it's, uh, instead of just like 15 minutes in the morning and then it's like dry as a bone by the end of the day, so you're getting it 3 times a day for the same time frame.

Rather than just all at once?

All at once. Yeah.

Okay. So is, I mean, is it okay to do it in the middle of the day like that when it's this hot?

I mean, yes and no, but I mean, we're dealing with like 107-degree average weather, right?

Yeah.

You know, um, so I would say any water is a benefit.

Okay. Yeah, any, any time of day, it just doesn't matter.

I mean, you want to focus early morning or late afternoon when the sun goes down. So you can still do that soak process Um, in those 2 windows. It doesn't have to be 3, but a lot of people that take— have taken like the Master Gardener course, right, and whatnot, they're doing it, uh, 3 times a day.

So, which, by the way, you're a Master Gardener, aren't you?

You know, did you keep that up? Sit me— if you were to sit next to me with a Master Gardener, I know more than the Master Gardener, but I have not taken the Master Gardener course.

You haven't taken it yet?

No.

Okay.

Just being in the field and just buying a ridiculous amount of plants on the regular. I've learned everything.

Yeah.

Um, and it's just being in field experience. But no, I have not taken the Master Gardener course. Now, I have taken other courses, just not that specific one.

Let me tell you, I, I like the Master Gardener program over there, but those little old ladies, they're arrogant.

All it is is old ladies. I mean, you know, you will catch other people, but it's either you're a landscaper or you're, uh, an old lady with some time on her hands, you know what I mean? So I, I'll walk into an interview And I'll know I'm about to walk into a Master Gardener old lady. Yeah. Like, I can tell there's certain signs, you know, soaker hoses, certain plants that aren't normal, you know what I mean? So like, I know what I'm walking into, and then I have to gear myself to that interview.

Now, we went over there, and I'm gonna tell you right now, I got bullied.

You will. And I felt bullied.

I'm not a little guy, and I got bullied. But this lady might have been like 4'2.

So she had my number. I'm proud to say that I can keep up with them old ladies now. So it took a— it was a very intense process getting to that point. But now that I'm there, it's, you know, I almost intimidate them at this point.

That's good.

Yeah.

They need some intimidation over there.

I'm telling you right now.

Hey, is so like kind of getting back to the grass. I know St. Augustine is kind of the standard around here. Right. Is there, I mean, like, you know, people are looking at it going, okay, like this is, this is almost like 5 weeks of triple digit temperatures. Is there, is there another grass that's, that's better for, for temperatures like this? I mean, should people be looking at like Bermuda or Zoysia or, or something like that, or is St. Augustine going to be the go-to still?

I mean, in Texas, I would only recommend the St. Augustine brand, um, because Bermuda and Zoysia is a special order. So if you end up getting, um, say you have a Zoysia yard, and I always let my clients know this, if 5 pieces of grass die, right, you have to buy an entire pallet to replace those 5 pieces of grass.

Geez.

So of course it's a softer grass, it's more delicate. So take the due diligence if you do have that to pay the extra money to get the irrigation right, right? Um, but if you want to keep everything on the cost-effective mode, right, and stick with St. Augustine and deal with it because you can pick it up one square at Home Depot or Lowe's, you know, or any of these, um, sod suppliers have St. Augustine, uh, easily accessible versus Bermuda takes a couple days to order, Zoysia a couple, like a week to order, and you can only order a pallet at a time.

Yeah, and I, I don't mean to like focus on grass as much, but I know it's something everybody's struggling with. Oh sure, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. But like, I know I Fall is kind of just around the corner. Yeah. I mean, do you guys do like rye seeding or anything like that to keep people's grass green through the winter? Is that something people are asking for?

I mean, I'm a salesman just like anyone else that is a business owner.

Yeah.

So of course I'm trying to push as much as I can, you know, with it being accessible, you know, for the time of the year, you know. So if it's, if it's time for rye seed, of course me and my sales crew pushing rye seed.

Yeah.

And, you know, rye seed—

But like, but why? I mean, like—

So rye seed makes your grass look green during the winter.

During the winter.

That's it.

Yeah.

So if, if you are— if, if you're talking to other landscapers and they're like, hey, I got this seed and it's going to fill in those blank spots, all it is is a seasonal sprout that makes your yard look green during the winter months. So when summer comes, it's If you think hiring a landscaper to put in rye seed is going to fix a patch of grass, you're wrong. All it's going to do is make it look green. As soon as the spring heat comes, it's dead.

Is that because rye doesn't last through the summer, or is it like that St. Augustine's choking it out? What's happening there?

A bit of both. I mean, St. Augustine's aggressive, especially in the spring, but rye is— you're asking me a good question. Remember I told you you're really good at asking questions? Good job. Yeah, it's my job, man. You know, rice seed dies in the heat.

Okay.

That's as much as I know. You can buy it in 3 different levels. You can buy it short, medium, and high. If you buy medium and high, you're paying your lawn guy to come by and mow.

Right. Yeah.

So we're pushing medium and high, right?

Oh yeah, sure.

But we will let the clients know that there is a short version available to where you can still not pay for the recurring maintenance.

Yeah. And are, are you, are you having to scale back a little bit on how long your crews are out working right now because of the heat?

I mean, No, uh, my crews are accustomed to this.

Okay.

Um, you know, they— at my company, we pay by the hour, right? Um, now I'm not mad if the crew does get off earlier, takes longer breaks, but they're still putting in the same hours right now.

Okay, well, and, and so, so to— I guess to get off of grass, I mean, what other, what other big things are people focusing on right now? Because I imagine you just had like the big wave of people moving in right before the end of summer, getting their kids ready in the schools. So they're buying new houses, they're wanting to adjust their landscaping. What are some things you're hearing people wanting to adjust on their houses landscaping-wise?

I mean, right now with the heat, if you have an irrigation system, you'll start noticing areas in your yard that are starting to yellow. And they're going, hey, what's going on with this? You know, like we have an irrigation system, but then I'll turn the irrigation system on in front of them and prove to them that it's not hitting certain areas. So there's, you know, over a time period, the nozzle, Heads will get sunk down, lawnmowers running them over, nozzles will get broken, or maybe not the incorrect nozzle was installed initially. So, you know, right now we're getting a lot of irrigation. You know, when we get heat waves like this, it's irrigation related. When we get

a lot of rain, my phone's blowing up with drainage. So to answer your question, right now my phone is mainly ringing from irrigation repair and adjustments.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, just people wanting to like salvage what they've got left.

Correct. I mean, really, people are saying, hey, skip my yard this week, don't mow, because, um, for one, we don't feel like our money's worth it because like there's nothing growing, right?

Yeah.

And, and we're accessible, you know, we, we love our clients, so we're like, absolutely, you know, we'll put you down for we'll skip your visit, you know, no hard feelings. We definitely understand, yeah, what's going on. Yeah.

All right, so we're coming up at the end of our, of our 10-minute allotment here, but yeah, I know. I've got, I've got 2, 2 last questions, uh, for you though. How, how important is it for people that are looking to get their, their irrigation system adjusted to make sure that that person is licensed?

So if you—

because I know that you are.

Yeah, so honestly I would only call a licensed irrigator if you're getting a new system installed.

Okay.

So there's inspections that come into play. You know, you have to connect to the main line of your house to add an irrigation system. So when upon an inspection, you have to leave that exposed.

Yeah.

Now, if someone's going to come in and adjust some nozzles and adjust some heads, you know, definitely look at their work. I would say don't go through the trouble of trying to find a licensed irrigation, um, person because— I mean, you can because you're gonna come to my company, but there's just like a lot of the people that go to these irrigation stores aren't.

Sure.

You know, um, and they still do good work, but if you're, if you're paying for someone that doesn't have the irrigation license, you know, absolutely take the, take the extra step and look at what you're paying for. You know what I mean? Go out there with them, make sure the coverage is good, you know, make sure you're happy, you know, listen to their expertise. But you don't necessarily have to get a licensed irrigation company to come do an adjustment on this, right? Yeah, or new nozzles. Yeah, per se, or, or a simple leak. But if you're getting a new irrigation system installed, then yeah, go through the due diligence, ask the right questions.

Yeah, I mean, I've had to deal with it a lot recently just because I've been recommending people because there's we deal with wet spots on people's houses all the time, and it's like, look, you, you have somebody that didn't design your system well, and it's creating some problems for you that's creating secondary problems that are going to be way more expensive than just adjusting your, your irrigation system.

That's sometimes, you know, going with the cheaper guy, you get that, you get that quality of service, you know, for sure. Um, and should it be a tee and you got a 90 and a cap, you know what I mean? Like, you know, it's like sometimes these guys, you know, they're all trying to penny pinch and and save a couple bucks to do your install versus if you were to go with the guy that's $100 more, you might get it done right the first time.

For sure. And that can save you a bunch of money. So selfishly, I'm going to ask this question. The front pasture in my place is just decimated. It's turned to sand and it used to be like this haven of St. Augustine. I mean, is there any way to bring that back or is it just like reseeding? Is it putting down, you know, pallets of grass? I mean, what do I— I imagine I'm not the only one.

I've been to your house. You have a big property.

Yeah.

So if you're willing to spend for an installer to do about $425 per pallet, which only covers 450 square feet, right, then go ahead. Now, if you're trying to do something yourself, look up the— it's called seed and straw. Okay. So this is if you don't have an irrigation system and you're wanting to, um, bring St. Augustine back from a decimated place.

Yeah, that's where I'm at.

You need to go get some St. Augustine seed and then put hay, that's the straw, on top and then water it. And then your St. Augustine will eventually grow and your hay can go away.

Okay. It'll sort of—

The seed and straw technique is what it's called. It'll mulch up over time and it'll wither away. And then the rest of it, when their grass starts growing, you can just mow on top of it.

Okay.

But seed and straw is going to be your non-irrigation yard technique to getting your yard back to where it needs to be.

Is that hay kind of holding the moisture?

Right, it holds the moisture down. So you're— and it also holds the seeds in place so the wind, the dogs, the birds, um, don't pick up the seeds, don't move the seeds to where you'll have like a small patch. You know, the seed and straw will— the straw keeps the seeds in place.

Awesome.

If you're not paying for like, uh, hydro seeding, which they only do really on commercial properties and ditches and roadways.

Okay, I got you, dude. That's a hot tip right there.

You're welcome.

It's always good talking to you. Yeah, man. Uh, so if people want to get a hold of you, they want to hire you, how do they get a hold of you?

So Facebook is real big. We have a business page. Um, it's Faust Landscaping, um, on Facebook, and then faustlandscapingllc.com. Also, uh, my phone number is 936-207-3238.

Awesome, man. Good, good to talk to you. Thank you for sitting down with us. Uh, if, if people want to follow you, they can go find you on Facebook and Instagram and all that kind of good stuff.

Not on Instagram.

Not Instagram, but Facebook.

Facebook is where we're at. And, uh, my website, we have a fill-out form. So there you go.

Fantastic, man. Thank you so much for sitting down. Guys, if you haven't yet, follow the page. Uh, go give, uh, Mike's page a Follow over there at Faust Landscaping. We'll see you next time on here on The Homeowner Show. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you.