Suggestion needed in Texas

HavenTgotAclue – posted 03 September 2005 15:18

hello all, i’m in Houston Texas and have had a huge problem with my grass recently. i am in a new house (bought 2 years ago) and just started having a major problem with my St.Aug.

My grass has always looked good and been tall and green. At the beginning of this year the nieghbor to the right of me moved out and no one moved in. the yard completely die and turned into a mess of weeds and dead grass beds.

My grass showed no signs of a problem until a month or so later.

Since i moved in i have always fertilized (just used the suggested stuff by scott’s) and watered frequently ( once every 3 days for 40 mins in each zone of the yard [3 zones])

Well…. now my yard is total crap. the grass hardly grows, i increased my watering interval (from reading i now know was a bad idea) and i’ve layed down turf builder and several other lawn treatments and the yard is wasted.

it started out as small brown places all over the yard then turned into several huge portions of dead grass with tons of weeds.

This is my first home and i am only 22 so my yard care/knowledge and experience is almost “0”

i was considering tilling the entire yard early next spring and just starting over with the same or different grass.

to summarize my intent with this post——> If i were to completely start over what is a good grass type to go with?

and..Is it possible to buy St.Aug. seeds and try to save my current lawn OR MAYBE even just lay new grass on top????

here are before and after pictures of the lawn. they pics are hosted on a motorcycle website so they may be deleted shortly. a quick response with ANY sort of help would be greatly apreciated

last year before problemstaken while i was writing this post/ MAJOR PROBLEM

QWERTY – posted 03 September 2005 17:51

Whao. thats a lot of watering in HOUSTON?! In addition to the rain???. At the MOST (for established turf), it should be 1 hour or 1 inch per week DURING dry period. I wonder if that caused fungus damage. If it’s new grass or the roots are shallow and need to spread out, i think every 3 days for 30 minutes might work better before going to once a week for an hour. Use a rain gauge to determine how much watering you need. Don’t really the weather news for that. It varies greatly in wide spread land of Houston.

go to http://www.dirtdoctor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=382 to learn about organic practice on the lawn.

St Aug is prone to fungus damage esp in Houston where you get more rain. I’ve lived there most of my life so I should know how it is down there. Read that and read all the threads in that Lawn Care sections when you have time.

This way will get your yard much healthier than using chemical stuff although that might take longer to see results. Compost might be the most expensive you’d have to get to get the ball rolling but if you do it right, you won’t need to get more compost again for a long time.

HavenTgotAclue – posted 03 September 2005 20:38

thank you for the response. i had a feeling you’d be the first to reply as i’ve seen you alot reading through the site.

i would also like to thank the Admin of this forum for allowing me to post a question and use the services for free

thanx again.

seed – posted 03 September 2005 23:05

You are very welcome.

Phil

HavenTgotAclue – posted 05 September 2005 18:23

ok—-> i’ve read through enough info to make my head explode and have chosen to go ahead and stick to an organic plan.

i found enough compost to do my yard for $98, and some beneficial Nematodes for $12. also can get some CGM and Corn meal for very very cheap from a friend with a feed store.

My question is ( i haven’t seen the answer anywhere) ??? Is it too late in the year to start trying to remidy my yard problems now???

i don’t want to spend all this money on compost, nematodes, and corn mean, unless right now is a good enough time to considerably help the yard. i understand that progress is slow and that while the soil and grass is reacting i will have to continue hand picking weeds and watering correctly.i just want to get the treatment in the ground at the correct time so that the yard will reap full benefit.

should i leave the yard alone until next year and hope there is enough St. Augustine left to treat and hope it takes the yard back over,…or…should i start right away and get this stuff in the ground before doramncey hits

thanx in advance for any more help

QWERTY – posted 05 September 2005 20:33

First thing I’d do is spread 1 cubic yard per 1000 sqft then immediately spread regular corn meal 20lbs per 1000 sqft (not corn GLUTEN meal, they are two different things). Water them in well to reach the soil. Go ahead and do it now. Do it again in feburary or march. From there on, you might not need any more compost as long as you keep feeding microbes in the soil with protein based grains which i will be listing below.

For Corn Gluten meal, it’s bit tricky of when exactly to use them for pre emergent weed control. Try Sept 15-22. Im doing mine on the 15th (i live south of DFW area). CGM is usually the most expensive other than compost to use for organic care but it has high amount of nitrogen so you’d see more growth in 2-3 weeks as the microbes breaks them dowm. Twice a year (mid feb and mid sept if you have weed problems, you might eventually not need them for weed but they provide good boost of nitrogen though). Cottonseed meal is signifcantly cheaper and provide good boost of nitrogen but it has acid pH so i don’t know if it’s needed in houston?? I know I need them up here for alkaline soil. Alfalfa meal/pellet is a pretty good one because of its supposedly potent plant growth hormone. Blood meal is the highest in nitrogen but very fast acting that can burn your yard if overdone!(not recommended or as least not to be used alone, can be mixed with corn meal or alfalfa to add more fast acting nitrogen) Soybean meal is also high in nitrogen. The regular corn meal doesn’t have much protein/nitrogen but pretty good preventative against fungus damage.All the grain based take a while to break down. Feather meal (hair based) is high in protein but VERY slow to break down.

There are some good organic ferlizers with mixed ingredients that I mentioned above. They costs more though. I used Texas Tee (google it) which cost like 16 dollars which covers 5000sqft or something. I don’t know what to look for as far as improvement goes. Oh well.

Since you live in houston, you should have plently of growing season left. Try this.. cut the highest your mower can cut and keep it there. You *might* have more green in your yard in the winter. My brother does that and he says that his is usually the greenest in his neighborhood. Try that and see if that works.There are others that have similiar experiences. SA does not like to be cut low. It might also depend on which variety of SA you have. Palmetto (semi dwarf type and apparently doesnt grow tall) and Del Mar supposedly retain color later in the fall (or winter).

Watch your watering practice. Water properly! Someone went as far as watering nonstop for 3 weeks with soaker hose at tricklng flow and move 18 inches and repeat till he reached end of the prop line and start over one more time. Crazy but he said he saw significantly improvement from that. I cant imagine doing that but soaker hose is very good for deep soaking soil. I will try it next spring but probably not 3 weeks. maybe few days at a time? Who knows…

turfrus – posted 06 September 2005 05:59

“it started out as small brown places all over the yard then turned into several huge portions of dead grass with tons of weeds.”

Sounds like you need to get a positive read on what the real problem is. Most likely chinch bugs got it and will do so within a shockingly short time, like a few weeks. They can completely wipe out St. Aug. while you’re standing there scratching your head wondering what happened. Take a sample of the grass to a Nursery and have them put it under a microscope. Before you go off on an organic binge be sure it’s worth the effort and know the REAL benefit of the efforts. It’s all in The Balance, which means tempering chemical and mechanical controls with organic amendments/treatments.

All soils are deficient in organic matter (unless the former land was once a rainforest) and it seems the less pesticides I use, the less insect invasions I have. However, if you did indeed got a big hit of say….Chinch bugs, there aint nothing like Diazinon granules to take care of the problem. It’s short and sweet, effective and cost efficient. I tilled in 50 cu. yds. of free composted horse manure in 6,000 s.f. of weed infested farmland before sodding with Zoysia, which I really LOVE. Highly recommend Jamur, Palisades, Zeon, or El Toro zoysia over St. Augustine, anyday. If I had to do St. Aug. in Houston, my first choice would be Floratam. I’m in central Texas.

Anytime you have any kind of plant material that is stressed, it is a target for insect and disease problems, reason why the weeds took over also. If you wish to start over, put down a pre-emergent herbicide this month and sod come March.

Good luck