Care Plan

The Care Plan (Calendar) is where you track all lawn care activities beyond irrigation — fertilization, aeration, overseeding, mowing, and more. These entries feed into Sprigg's AI analysis, helping it make smarter irrigation and disease prevention decisions.

Event Types

Sprigg supports the following activity types:

Adding Events

To add a new care plan entry:

1. Navigate to the Care Plan page from the main navigation
2. Click Add Entry
3. Select the date and event type
4. Add a title and optional description with details (product name, rate, conditions, etc.)
5. Optionally upload a photo to document the activity or lawn condition
6. Save the entry

Photo Uploads

You can attach photos to any calendar entry to document lawn conditions over time. Photos are stored securely and are accessible from your calendar and through the Ask Sprigg chat.

Common uses for photos:

• Document disease symptoms for AI analysis
• Track lawn recovery after treatment
• Before/after comparisons for seasonal changes
• Record product labels for future reference

You can also upload photos directly to the Photo Journal and run AI-powered analysis on them — getting instant health scores, disease detection, weed identification, and care recommendations. See the Photo Analysis page for details.

Event Statuses

Each calendar entry can be in one of these states:

• Planned — Scheduled for the future
• Completed — Done; mark an event complete when you've finished the activity
• Skipped — Skipped due to weather, schedule conflicts, or other reasons
• Recommended — Suggested by the AI based on your lawn's condition and seasonal timing

You can also undo a status change if you marked an event incorrectly.

How Calendar Data Feeds Into AI

Your care plan entries are part of the data package sent to the AI advisor each day. This means:

• Fungicide applications may cause the AI to slightly increase watering confidence, knowing disease risk is being actively managed
• Recent overseeding triggers lighter, more frequent watering recommendations to support germination
• Fertilizer applications may prompt the AI to adjust watering to help nutrient absorption without runoff
• Aeration events inform the AI that soil compaction has been addressed, potentially improving infiltration rates

The more complete your care plan is, the better Sprigg's recommendations become.

Nitrogen Budget & Feeding Pace

Sprigg keeps a season-long feeding budget for your grass type and paces it to when your lawn can actually use the food. Fertilizer suggestions arrive when growth conditions support them, and Sprigg will tell you when you've applied enough for the year — more nitrogen past that point mostly buys you extra mowing and disease pressure, not a better lawn.

How it works: each grass species has an annual nitrogen target drawn from university extension guidance (for example, roughly 3-4 lbs N per 1,000 sq ft per year for Kentucky bluegrass, 1-2 for low-input fine fescue). Monthly pacing uses the research-backed PACE Turf growth-potential model, which estimates how actively your grass can grow from recent temperatures — feeding is front-loaded into the months your species grows hardest and withheld when growth potential is low. Fertilizer entries you log in the care plan count against the budget.

Mowing Height Guidance

Sprigg recommends a mowing height range for your grass type and the current season — including raising the deck during summer heat stress for cool-season lawns (taller grass shades the crowns and grows deeper roots) and easing back down in fall.

How it works:heights come from a per-species seasonal table built on university extension mowing guidance, and "season" is derived from your local climate rather than the calendar — a Georgia spring and a Minnesota spring don't start on the same day. Dormant warm-season turf is flagged as not needing regular mowing at all.

Soil-Temperature Triggers

The most time-sensitive lawn tasks are driven by soil temperature, not the date on the calendar. Sprigg tracks your soil temperature trend and alerts you when a window opens:

• Pre-emergent window — Soil approaching the crabgrass germination point (~55°F sustained): get pre-emergent down now. Sprigg also flags when the window has closed and pre-emergent would be late.
• Fall overseeding window — Soil falling back through ~70°F: prime time to seed cool-season grass.
• Spring green-up — Soil rising through ~65°F: warm-season lawns are waking up.
• Winterizer timing — Soil falling to ~50°F: time for the final fall nitrogen on cool-season turf.

How it works:each trigger requires a sustained trend (about a week of readings moving the right direction), so a single warm or cold day can't fire a false alarm, and each alert fires once per season.

Seeding Windows & Establishment Watering

Planning to seed or overseed? Sprigg scores upcoming windows for your grass species and, once you log a seeding, switches the affected zones to an establishment watering schedule — light, frequent watering while the seed germinates, tapering back to normal deep-and-infrequent watering as the new grass roots in.

How it works:every species has a germination profile from university extension data — perennial ryegrass sprouts in about a week, Kentucky bluegrass can take three — with an optimal soil temperature range (roughly 50-65°F soil for cool-season seed, 65-80°F for warm-season). Window scores combine soil temperature with the forecast, and the establishment schedule's length is tuned to your species' actual germination time.