Maintenance staff at Balmorhea State Park were hunting a subterranean ghost.

A 12-zone irrigation system that covered thousands of square feet snaked below most of the distinctive West Texas property. As designed, it sent water to the park’s wide network of plant life and multi-use areas, from ocotillo and cottonwood to sprawling grass picnic lawns.

The extensive system utilized equipment and piping on a scale that rivaled a typical golf course. But unknown causes were keeping it from fulfilling its intended outcomes.

Balmorhea State Park, home to the world’s largest spring-fed swimming pool. Photo: Wiki Commons

Park Superintendent Torrey Bonham was hard at work diagnosing the problem but found details hard to come by.

“It was put in many years ago and as previous superintendents retired, a lot of the knowledge was lost. That’s why we were struggling to rectify the issues,” Bonham said.

Balmorhea’s Background

The need to get the job done was obvious. Balmorhea State Park lies in a particularly scorching pocket of West Texas. The San Salomon Springs, which now feed the pool, used to naturally irrigate the area with a system of streams and cienegas. But when the Civilian Conservation Corps constructed the pool in the 1930s, it re-channeled the natural water source. The diversion essentially made irrigation a necessity for the native and adapted species around the park.

Not to mention the grass. By 2022, the soft grass beds that covered the lawns where visitors picnicked and relaxed were dying under the scorching West Texas heat.

The State Park is an unequivocal gem. It attracts a diverse array of visitors from all over the country, and draws important tourist funding into the local economy. It’s also a safe haven for a wide range of wildlife, from birds like the Great Blue Heron and the American Coot to pupfish and softshell turtles.

Bonham worked to settle the issue, fast.

Urgent Scope Leads the Way

Maas Verde irrigation techs not only accepted the challenging assignment of an extensive diagnostic and repair at the park, but began the scope with one urgent line item.

A Texas nonprofit had planted several trees alongside the pool’s central walkway, in anticipation of an upcoming fundraiser. The donated plantings, installed in cooperation with the State Park, were now withering in the desert soil without water. There was a week to go until the event.

Maas Verde mobilized from its Austin headquarters with its best irrigation technicians and no time to spare.

An expedited diagnostic revealed several problems that stemmed from work by previous contractors. First, workers who had planted the trees had evidently cut buried pipes and made no effort to repair them.

A different company began another scope of work by replacing the system controller — but replaced it with a unit that was below commercial grade. Next, they installed around 100 feet of light-duty PVC, which led to a junction near the new trees and a few failed bubbler heads.

That was as far as Maas Verde traced their progress. The work was incompatible with the existing system, but also buried squarely in the way of any remediation.

Beyond these functional issues, the system’s original design was an enigma.

Troubleshooting and Repairs

Maas Verde president and founder Ted Maas led the company’s first, ambitious mobilization to the site. A seasoned landscape technician with Master Irrigator course experience, Maas understood right away that his team was facing a perplexing task.

“Immediately I realize, there is so much going on with this system that none of us can know. We’re trying to get an idea of what this thing looks like underground. I’m getting information from multiple channels, and some of it’s conflicting,” Maas explained.

As Bonham worked to organize information and reconcile reports, Maas Verde blitzed the priority list. The company first made a plan to irrigate the struggling new trees. Running a new zone that bypassed the various damaged and partially functional components would be the best practice.

Sourcing compatible-sized PVC and valves from Odessa (a 90-minute drive away), the team got to work. Tasks included trenching to spec, boring underneath a concrete sidewalk, checking connections, and completing the new zone with componentry.

Maas Verde logged overtime each day to complete the project on schedule, to a satisfactory result.

But that was just the beginning.

Several months of periodic visits ensued, as the team worked to make sense of the rest of the system and trace underground faults. The faults seemed to multiply; because the technicians could only locate the next electrical failure or pipe leak by tracing it downstream from the last one, the work required diligence and patience.

Criss-crossing components representing years of layering work made diagnostics and repairs more puzzling. A contractor had inexplicably cut wires and buried them inches outside a valve box, but connected the wrong wires inside; A heavy equipment operator had destroyed several feet of pipe with an excavator but buried it without a trace; miswired solenoids had shorted out and no longer operated.

Eureka! System Finally Works

Maas Verde worked methodically. Finally, technicians excavated an old valve buried in an obscure location below several inches of natural turf. It proved to be the last missing link in the system. The team incorporated it into the system, confirmed each zone operated from the controller, and concluded the project.

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Prior to Maas Verde’s involvement, one other contractor had made marginal progress. That company repaired a few mainline breaks and diagnosed some non-communicating solenoids, but fell short of the full repair.

Once Texas Parks and Wildlife awarded a contract to Maas Verde, Bonham had added the last phone number to his list on the project.

Bonham complimented Mass on their “attention to detail, and willingness to get it done. When we ran into zones not working and so forth, it was really Maas Verde’s commitment to staying behind its word that set it apart and ultimately got the job done.”

Last week, an amazing thing happened in Austin. If you were looking out the window, maybe you saw it. Or if you’re a tough customer and you were standing outside, maybe you even felt it on your skin.

It was fleeting but it happened. I wouldn’t report it if I didn’t know it, because I could barely believe it myself. And I only know it because I was there.

It rained.

Photo: Sadie-Michaela Harris, WordPress

It’s great that the Austin area received scattered rain early last week. But what’s not great is that this sparse rainfall turned anyone’s head at all.

Depending on where you live in greater Austin or beyond, you’re locked in severe to extreme drought (per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). And there’s no end in sight. Virtually every community in the surrounding area has implemented water restrictions by this point in the summer.

The upshot is, a lot of us see flat brown lawns baking in the sun when we look out our windows. But conventional care will likely harm your grass, given this weather and these irrigation constraints.

Still, there’s good news. Maas Verde knows a simple Texas two step for stronger grass, healthier soil, and more resilient plant communities.

Life finds a way. See the green?

Here’s how to help your grass survive the dog days.

Water Deeply

No matter what kind of grass you have, it needs deep roots to grow. Water should penetrate to a depth of six inches or more.

If you set up a hose-end sprinkler in the hottest part of the day and let it rip, water droplets will burn off in midair on their way to the ground.

That hurts your pocket, but what hurts your grass comes next. Even the water that reaches the soil won’t penetrate far before thirsty roots get to it.

Superficial watering will trigger your grass to grow shallow roots, not deep ones. And when plants experience drought stress, reaching deeper is one of their key survival adaptations.

Your grass needs some drought stress to stimulate healthy root growth.

Dappled shade and tall enough grass is a recipe for success.

Water-deprived plants release a hormone called Abscisic Acid (ABA). Prolonged ABA production triggers a process that helps the plant (grass or otherwise) retain its water and seek other hydration sources.

Most grasses begin this process by changing the anatomy of their blades. Tiny pores in the blade called stomata close, and the cuticle (or blade surface) thickens. ABA then stimulates the roots to grow deeper, reaching for moisture further underground.

Cut Your Grass Tall or Leave Your Mower Parked

Grass blades are leaves; the plant can’t photosynthesize without plenty of leaf area. Cut 1/3 of the blade or less, or none at all.

If your grass looks too high, consider this: like trees, what’s above the ground mirrors what’s below. In fact, roots can account for ⅔ of a grass plant’s total biomass. You’ll want it tall if you want healthy, deep-rooted grass that retains and enriches your soil.

Tall blades do better even in poor soil.

And when you do run a machine over your yard, do the ecosystem and your wallet a favor and leave the clippings and thatch on the ground.

Thatch is that brown, dead or dormant material that can rest on top of the soil, below the green blade tips. It’s free fertilizer, and so are grass clippings.

Unless dead plant matter somehow makes it into soil, that area will lack vital nutrients. You can add nutrients back into soil either by spreading fertilizer onto it or allowing decomposition to take place on its own.

Nitrogen is the key to the process. Unless there’s plenty of this elemental gas in the soil for grass to absorb, diseases can spread, and your lawn can wither and die.

Nitrogen is a main ingredient in almost any commercial fertilizer you can buy. It also comes from thatch and grass clippings. So do other key plant nutrients like potassium and phosphates.

So why bag and trash your free sources of them?

Thatch layers promote nutrient cycling, helping grass survive even the driest months.

Maas Verde project manager and resident Master Naturalist Marc Opperman summed it up.

“There is a nutrient balance being negotiated in any plant community,” Opperman explained, adding that Maas Verde advises biodiverse alternatives to single-species lawns. “If you’re lacking nutrients like nitrogen, several adverse outcomes could result. It sets the lawn up for disease, or you could see patchiness or discoloration. On the other hand, if it’s all balanced, you’re going to have a uniform carpet of whatever species you’ve got in its full color and thickness.”