Centipede and St Augustine look much the same. Find a blade that has not been mowed. At the tip centipede will be pointed while St Augustine will have a boat tail shape. But it has to be St Aug because centipede only grows in full sun on p-poor soil. Best thing you can do is never let it die. While that may seem obvious, most grasses will go dormant when dry but St Aug goes straight to dead. That does not mean it has to be soaking wet all the time. It just needs to not dry out continuously for several weeks. Proper watering for St Aug is like all lawns. Water it deeply (one inch at a time) and infrequently (this time of year it might be every 14 days). Mulch mow at your mower's highest setting for spectacular turf. It will take several weeks after you fertilize for all the grass to get up to that height but you will thank yourself for doing it. Tall St Aug will go much longer into a drought before it needs water. It will also help keep weeds out. I have a rural lawn surrounded by all kinds of weeds but none are sprouting up in the middle where it is tall. Now I'm working on spreading the grass out to mingle with the weeds and choke them out. If you want it to excel, it really needs fertilizer like yesterday. You'll get the fastest results from using something organic like alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) once a month at a rate of 20-30 pounds per 1,000 square feet. The reason that is faster than chemical fertilizers is that you can only apply chems once now and again in the fall or you risk burning the grass. Or you could apply both now and continue with the alfalfa for a few months to keep the green going. It will become much more dense, also. Now for some pictures to illustrate what I'm talking about. 1. Tall St Augustine in a lawn setting. This is mowed at the mower's highest setting. Fertilizer is corn gluten meal. 2. St Augustine that has not been mowed since last October. Pic was taken on Valentines Day when all the rest of the lawns were dormant but this one was not. Dog is 35 pounds so not a puppy. This is an experiment I'm doing with my rural lawn. Note there are no weeds in sight. 3. Effect of alfalfa pellets on zoysia lawn. This lawn is just like yours (thin). The spot was fertilized in May 2011 and photo taken in June. Note the improved density, color, and growth.

Shamefully, we have not been taking very good care of it. We have in the past fertilized sporadically with commercial fertilizers. Once to maybe 3 times a year. We just put down the Scott's fertilizer with Halts. When the forsythia are in bloom, right? I will have to measure the mower height and I *think* I have DH convinced to mulch this year (unless we let it get too high). We also haven't watered it in the dead of summer ever, really. I guess it would be easy enough to measure rainfall (and water deeply once a week! See, I have been reading!) I guess I probably know enough to think if we just fertilize, water when needed, mow at the right height, try to keep the weeds away (which stronger turf will help with), and seed in the fall we could be in pretty good - or at least much better - shape. But I'll take validation on that or any further advice...websites, plans, ideas for how to transition to more environmentally friendly fertilizers. I guess I don't know where to go for that stuff - I imagine I would have to drive out to the farm supply stores far, far away for some of the things I have read about on here (which are escaping me at the moment, of course). Although I guess to do that 1-2 times a year wouldn't be terrible depending on the volume we would have to store and the storage properties. I'm open to ideas!

Peat makes an excellent preservative. The modern horticultural practice of using a sterile medium like peat is in order to create a hydroponic environment, that can force-feed plants into rapid production. I've found a few nurseries who grow in-pot organically, and they avoid peat. I don't see large chunks of pine bark in their soil medium, either. Some use rainwater to irrigate, most are wholesale and at least one is open to the public. Transplanting and establishment ease have been outstanding with these trees grown organically with a comost-based medium. Some use pots that are designed to eliminate circling roots. This is a far superior product, that establishes and plants easier, than any tree grown in peat, or in a plastic pot. It's really a leap were speaking of, for a root to make the transition from an extremely acidic, sterile medium to a nearly neutral, live mineal soil. It ain't natural, and creates unnecessary stress on the plant when it needs it least-- during root establishment. But we grow potted plants in peat, anyways. Modern horticularal practices do not serve the grower so well, Most of the potted trees and plants you'll find in a retail nursery, have been force fed to grow lots of pretty foliage, in a poor soil medium, with underdeveloped and potbound roots. I know peat is good at preserving cave people and tubulars. But as a potting medium, it's used becasuse it is thought to be cheap, and that's the bottom line. There are conflicts of interest between the grower and the hulticulturalist who pushes peat as a pot medium. A lot of the carp they teach in hort school (and ag school, and other fields), has a bias towards perceived economic benefits, and can ignore for years, better, sounder science. M This post was edited by Mackel-in-DFW on Fri, Apr 25, 14 at 23:01

Yes, it was because of this place I have collected 140 different daylilies in two years. And, I plan to keep collecting. It's a drop in a bucket compared to the number others have on this forum, but not bad considering I just started to seriously collect them last year. And I love looking at the photos everyone shares here, it just makes my daylily want list that much longer. This forum is also where I learned how to make my own crosses, which is just as fun, if not more so, than collecting named cultivars. I made my first crosses last summer, winter sowed the seeds in February, and now most of the seedlings are at least ten inches tall, growing in their own pots and will be planted in the ground this fall. Still have to build a raised bed for them, but I'll get to it some time this summer. Karen