Is my St. Augustine Doomed? See pic

kmg123 – posted 16 September 2005 16:14

I’m afraid I’ve killed my grass. It started turning brown and just spread from there.

I thought maybe I wasn’t watering enough, so I watered more. Seems to have made it worse. I water 2-3 times a week for about 30-45 min per “zone.”

Please see the picture here to see if it helps.

km****@sb*******.net











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km****@sb*******.net











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Is there any hope?

seed – posted 16 September 2005 19:28

kmg123, it looks really bad. I would like to know what killed your St. Augustinegrass. It’s hard to say whether you watered too much, not enough, or just right. You can do a cup cathment test like this https://turfgrass.com/water/index.html and calculate how much you are irrigating per unit time. For example, water for a timed period, pour together the water from many cups, count the cups, measure the diameter of each cup, and you can find out your precipitation rate, or send me the data and I help you with it.

Phil,

ed****@tu*******.com

kmg123 – posted 16 September 2005 20:07

Phil,

I was afraid of that. I think I’m also having a drainage problem. I hadn’t watered for 5 days and watered today for 20 minute intervals. The pretty grass was wilted.

On the dead sections, there was standing water. My soil is like clay – very hard to dig in. If my grass is indeed dead, do you have any suggestions for what I should do?

I live in San Antonio, TX, if that helps. I’m also on a very tight budget which I know won’t help

AMCalla – posted 16 September 2005 22:26

Have you tested to see if you have a pest problem?

Aaron

kmg123 – posted 17 September 2005 20:53

No, I really haven’t.

I’ve just put cornmeal and nematodes down hoping that would address any fungus and pests.

It’s getting worse by the day, so I think I’m going to have to start over.

My healthy grass is now starting to turn yellow.

AMCalla – posted 18 September 2005 14:10

Well, chich bugs are bad here and I hear worse in south Texas. Here is a good way to test for them. First do a search on the internet so you can see what they look like. Then take a soup or coffee can and cut both ends to make a tube. Hammer the can into the groung about 2 inches in an area of good grass that is next to the dead grass. Have a gallon of water or so handy and fill the can almost to the top with the water. Slowly add water to keep the level for about 5 mins and if you have pests, they will eventually float to the top of the water. If you see chich bugs, that is what is killing your yard. Nematodes will help, but not in time to save any grass. You may need to apply a pesticide.

You can start over with new grass, but if you don’t find and correct the problem, the new grass will die as well.

Aaron

hankhill – posted 28 October 2005 23:41

If you have shade, such as between housesor under trees, I’ve found St. Augustinegrows extremely well there without muchwater–maybe 15 minutes per week in the fullheat of summer.

Here’s the point…

Your photo doesn’t show much area, but ifyour shady areas are as bad as that(almost dead), rest assured it’s something*other* than lack of water–either insectsof some sort (chinch bugs, grubs, etc.) ormold.

I had a sunny area sodded and it never tookhold from day 1; it looked just like thearea in your picture. It is slowlyrecovering under heavy watering, in thatthe small patches that survived arespreading, but it’s covered with devil grass(die Bermuda!) and I will probably need toresod it.

Next time, I won’t pay to have it done. I’lldo it myself in small sections so I can makesure it’s *soaked* for the first 2 weeks.

[This message has been edited by hankhill (edited 28 October 2005).]