Dye job gives illusion of life to dry Modesto lawn

Natural or dyed? Only the hairdresser knows for sure – and he’s happy to tell.

Modesto resident George Bakus, who owns and operates a downtown hairstyling salon that bears his name, didn’t like the look of his lawn, which was left largely yellow by reduced watering in this fourth year of drought.

He’d heard of lawn dye, but initially thought it comical. As time went on, though, the idea began to sound less silly, Bakus said. “As my grass continued to yellow, I looked into it.”

He found a few products online and settled on EnviroColor’s 4EverGreen, which he applied to his lawn June 27. Nearly a week later, his grass was a natural-looking green in a neighborhood – and city – where lawns left and right are drying out and losing their color.

As he talked outside his Viader Drive home Thursday about coloring his lawn, Bakus’ 31/2-year-old daughter, Stella, ran across the grass, her footsteps making a crunching noise. Bakus knelt down and ran his fingers through the blades. “It still feels like dry grass, but overall, I think it’s better to have green crunchy grass than yellow crunchy grass,” he said.

Assisted by his 9-year-old son, Sebastian, who protected bordering pavement by holding a cardboard barrier, Bakus dyed his roughly 700-square-foot front lawn in about two hours. He was using a pump sprayer with a small spray head that covered only 2 to 3 inches at a pass. He since has bought a backpack sprayer with a wider fan nozzle that covers an 8- to 10-inch path, so he figures reapplying will take about half the time.

Bakus learned some other lessons from his effort, such as making sure – as the manufacturer says – not to water within 24 hours of applying the dye. He forgot to turn off automatic sprinklers on one half of the lawn, so the effectiveness of the dye was diminished a bit, he said.

The manufacturer also recommends protecting pavement by wetting it so that drops of dye don’t stain the porous surface. But Bakus said he didn’t take that step, and pointed to some spots of dye splatter on his walkway and sidewalk.

On Amazon, a quart of EnviroColor – enough to cover 1,000 square feet, the site says – sells for $29.99. Bakus said the product is very concentrated, almost the consistency of paint. Directions on the bottle say that on dormant grass, a mixture of 9 to 12 ounces of dye to a gallon of water will treat about 300 square feet.

The coloring is supposed to last anywhere from six weeks to three months, Bakus said. He figures the first application to his lawn will last about two months because the grass’s growth has been retarded by minimal watering. He’s still watering twice a week as permitted by the city, but has to mow only about once a month. That watering is important to keep the soil moist, he said; otherwise, the grass roots could die and the lawn be lost entirely.

Since dying his own lawn, Bakus has a couple of others – a neighbor’s across the street and his sister and brother-in-law’s – under his belt, and soon will be spraying a next-door neighbor’s.

“It’s fantastic,” the neighbor across the street, Greg Nauman, said of how his lawn looks since Bakus sprayed it. “He’s a great neighbor. I told him his lawn looked great, and he offered to do mine.”

Bakus did the job the same day as his own, and Nauman agreed it’s holding up very well.

“The watering I do is very minimal,” he said. “I do it myself with a hose so I don’t have the sprinklers on.”

Like Bakus, Nauman’s lawn needs mowing maybe once a month in these dry times. When the color finally has faded, he said, he’d definitely like to have it reapplied.

Products such as EnviroColor have been around quite a while, Bakus said, primarily used on golf courses, athletic fields and by special-events planners beautifying lawns for outdoor weddings and the like. It’s just in the past year or so that it’s really taken off for residential use, he said.

A recent Sacramento Bee article quoted the owner of Xtreme Green Grass, who said he started painting lawns in that area three years ago but this summer, business has tripled. What used to be 10 yards a month has increased to a couple a day.

An online search for lawn painting in Modesto turned up a few services, including Green Again Lawn Painting in Modesto, RX Lawn Care Solutions in Salida and an ad on Craigslist. And Bakus is about to join their ranks.

“I enjoyed it so much,” he said of the work he’s done so far. “I enjoyed the transition, like magic to see it go from yellow to green before my eyes. I like working with my hands; there aren’t too many people doing this.”

And, as a salon owner, he knows a thing or two about coloring. Bakus already has come up with a business name, Greenback – “as in get your green back,” he said – and one of his salon clients built a website for him, Greenbackgrass.com. Through a friend, he already has lined up his first professional job: dying a Walnut Creek lawn for a special event.

He’s still working out his pricing, but figured it could be in the area of 30 cents per square foot.

Bakus is busy with his George Bakus Salon on 10th Street – “I’m there nine to 10 hours a day Tuesdays through Fridays” – and anticipates devoting Saturdays and Mondays to his new venture as demand dictates.

He said he also plans to put in his front yard a sign whose purpose is twofold: to promote his side business and to let passers-by know his lawn has been dyed, “so I don’t get eggs thrown at my house,” he joked, by people who think he’s watered enough to keep it so green.

This story was originally published July 3, 2015 at 1:53 PM with the headline "Dye job gives illusion of life to dry Modesto lawn."