Todd Graus at Green Turf Landscapes said there’s a piece of advice he tells all of his customers throughout Wyoming: Promote deeper roots by not watering your lawn too early. 

Graus opened a physical Cody location of his regional tree and lawn health business last year after serving the Powell/Cody area for 25 years from Worland.

He looks at his business as a partnership with his customers with a view to promote grass and tree health with the use of pesticides and other applications. 

“The work that we do is a partnership with the homeowner,” he said,   adding, “We can do our job, but we can’t water it for them, and we cannot mow it for them, but we can tell them what mechanical services to perform at different times of the year. We can tell them how to water throughout the year so that they’re getting the most use out of the water they have, and we can also help when weeds start showing their ugly head on lawns.”

Graus has been involved with what he calls “plant health care” for most of his life, having founded Green Turf Landscapes in 1984 at the age of 19. The family run business now services the Big Horn Basin, Jackson, Star Valley and Swan Valley, Idaho, with locations in Cody, Worland, Alpine and Jackson. 

“We’re a plant health care company, and so our job is to keep lawns and trees healthy, and when they’re sick, we get called in to diagnose the problem, to make them healthy, and then we continue to keep them healthy going into the future,” Graus said. 

Graus founded Green Turf Lawnscapes in 1984 and holds a BS degree in Forest Management (Pathology) from Colorado State University, with an emphasis on diseases of trees. He is a professional forester, offers lectures to “Certified Arborist,” himself a consulting arborist (American Society of Consulting Arborist) and prides himself on being a master of diagnosing the real illnesses of trees.  

“I’m uniquely qualified to go out and actually diagnose tree diseases … I can ID 168 different trees,” he said. “That gives us a big advantage over other companies.”

Graus said he is also recognized and called upon as an expert witness on natural resource issues in court cases when trees or stands of trees are part of a litigation scenario. 

With all that knowledge, he said this year’s growing season, historically, most closely tracks the temperatures and precipitation levels of 1916. 

“Trees are coming out. Lawns are coming out not having a lot of moisture,” he said. “We did get a lot of moisture last fall, moving up into even Christmas, we had rainfall all across the western part of Wyoming. But I think that the big takeaway for this year is that IF we have a hot, dry summer, that means we’re going to have to use our water very efficiently. And the most efficient way to use water in the summertime is to make sure the lawn is healthy getting up to summer.” 

Graus said his company focuses on managing the interaction between the tree and lawn roots and has a wide array of ways to get lawns and trees growing better using various fertilizers and other methods. As he says, the business is about more than spraying, it’s about assisting customers. And that includes education on how to take care of lawns and trees in between professional visits. 

“If you water too much to keep your lawn green, the trees are going to get stressed out and have problems,” he said. “If you don’t water the trees at all, the lawn is going to get stressed out and it’s going to have problems. And so the key feature here is to make sure that grass has a very, very deep root system.”

He said most grass around the area likely has about 2 inches of roots, which means it’s necessary to water everyday when the weather is warm to keep the grass green. 

But now, if you have a root system that’s 6 inches deep, or 8 inches deep, because we’re fertilizing and we’re promoting deep root growth in the springtime, then when summer comes, you can put down an application of water, and if the water is is moving down through the soil profile, there’s more roots to grab that water.”

He said it’s OK early on to water in fertilizer, but if you’re watering regularly throughout the spring, the grass roots have no incentive to deepen and search for a water source. 

“Therefore, they only have shallow root systems, becoming welfare patients the rest of the season,” Graus said.