It's a necessary ritual for homeowners in northern Nevada...preparing lawns for the cold, even before the winterizing. You can't get better advice than Jose Ibarra's. He moved to the U.S. from Mexico in 1980. His love affair with lawns began decades ago, when a landscaper saw something in him…likely a green thumb. And for 23 years now working lawns like this one we met him at in Wingfield Springs, it hasn't been work at all. As he put it, "If you like the job you're doing, you're going to do a god job...so I like it."
Jose is a hard working member of the Signature Landscapes crew. He gets 2 questions every October. First, how soon will our grass and plants go dormant for the winter? He told me, "Pretty soon. I will say next month we are going to start winterizing the systems."
Second, when should we shut off the sprinklers? Jose's a calendar guy. Despite the 90 degree temperatures we had just last week, he's sticking to the tried and true: "The last week of October, or the first week of November." That's when you turn off the system and drain all the water from it. "You have to drain most of the water out of the lines, so that way we keep it with no chance of freezing. We turn it off and drain…drain whatever water is in the line."
After then, its hard freeze season...and the damage comes easy. Jose has seen a lot of it. As he told me, "They need to prepare for winter, or it's going to cost a lot of money!"
But there are 2 things to do right now. Get these backflow blankets to cover every exposed water pipe. And disconnect the water hose. Because it's above ground it doesn't need a deep freeze to ice up and damage the faucet.
It sounds like a bit of work. But not to Jose Ibarra.
