It's unlikely that you have warm season grass. The reason it doesn't go dormant in the heat is that you're watering it enough to keep it green. The most common lawn grass for the Wasatch front is Kentucky bluegrass. A lot of "drought tolerant" mixes, especially cheap ones, have a high percentage of K-31 (sometimes called KY-31 or Kentucky-31). Stay away from these. Despite the fact that the name has Kentucky in it, it's not Kentucky bluegrass. It's a pasture form of tall fescue. It's very hardy, but it's wide bladed, grows faster than other lawn grasses and tends to get clumpy over time. Picking a time to seed is tough. You need to wait until the heat of the summer breaks and that may not be until some time in September. Then, you want to make sure you plant 6 weeks before the expected first frost, which is early October. Oops, only 4 weeks after heat broke. In the spring, if you wait for all the snow to melt, you'll almost certainly be planting too close to summer heat, so the grass won't have a chance to establish before the heat kicks in. I've had the best results with dormant seeding. To dormant seed, wait until just before the first good snow and seed at a slightly higher than normal rate. The normal freeze/thaw cycles and any snow melts will carry the snow into the soil. In the spring, the melting snow and occasional rain will provide enough moisture for the grass to germinate.

Hi Carol. I have had the same problem as you and eventually stumbled on a solution. As you look down on the top of the K8000 sprinkler you will notice two (2) screws. One screw has a larger head and is located on the outer perimeter or circumference of the top of the sprinkler. You should remove this screw with a screwdriver, or with the key that you should have got when you purchased your sprinkler. You will also notice that there is a second smaller screw located on the inner pop-up section, which is sometimes referred to as the turret. This smaller screw holds the nozzle in place.You do not have to remove this smaller screw unless you wish to clean the nozzle or to replace it. After removing the outer screw you ought to be able to twist the head of the sprinkler to the left and lift out the inner spring loaded pop -up section. This top or head section may be frozen in place and may require a slight tapping to loosen before twisting to the left. . I hope I have been of some assistance to you. Good luck~~~Mark

Hope this is still active. I have my sprinkler system controller in my garage. I have valves for the front yard sprinklers and valves for the back. My controller will still turn on front yard sprinklers, but not the backyard. It usedan to wor fine. The connections seem tight at the controller. Don't see any loose connections by the valves though it is somewhat complex looking at there. The valves will turn on the sprinklers if turned manually. How can I check for loose connections versus wire shortages. Not sure if relevant, but we (gardener) did change front yard sprinkler stations prior to the backyard issue started. But I can't remember if the backyard sprinklers were working after that for a short period of time or not. Thanks for any help.

If your emitters are failing: 1. Keep your drip heads above your mulch to keep the dirt out. 2. If it is a new system, flush the lines before installing the dripper heads. I have installed about 1000' of 1/2" tubing and another 1500' of 1/4" tubing to my approximately 800 dripper heads. A rather large system on four zones. Three years ago (first year), I had two dozen or so failures, but I didn't keep the heads off the ground. Now I do, and failures do not occur. Then again, I also switched manufacturers for the replacements, but the original ones not replaced are still doing fine. I use 1/2, 1, and 2 gph drippers, they all work equally well. I also had used a soaker hose, the 1/4" kind with a hole every foot or so. NOT!!! The holes clog and was totally ineffectual. I pulled almost all of it out, I have a few sections that are still working, but they are only watering very xeric plants that get enough water if even 2/3 of the holes were clogged. My system uses cistern water (10,000 gal tank buried in the front yard, water pulled out with a shallow-well pump), so hardness isn't a problem. The pump puts out 30-60 psi, I do not reduce it, and the only time an emitter has blown off it has been because of operator error. If you are using well water, then you may be getting sand and junk inside your lines clogging your emitters. Install a filter and you should be in business. Incidentally, I live at 7000' just east of Albuquerque, and the area around my house looks like a dense jungle of nothing but native plants with penstemons (at least 8 varieties), coneflower, chocolate flower, hyssops, yarrow, yucca, golden currant, sand cherry, salvias, thymes (non-native, but I wanted the groundcover), sumacs, and at least 20 other native species, all irrigated by emitters. Wouldn't do it any other way! Scott