I'm sorry I must have only previewed the previous message & not posted it! I live in Indianapolis, zone 5 B. Most of the residential grass here is a combination fescue/bluegrass, which is what I will probably use. I only have a couple of trees at the back edge of the lawn, so the only shade is from the house, which faces east. I did the jar test last week, & it still hasn't all settled. It looks like 5% sand, 10% silt with 10% clear water at the top leaving the remaining 75% clay. Also did the rolling test & had a strip about 4" long before it broke. I sent my soil samples to Purdue's extension & am waiting on results. In the meantime I just used a test kit from the hardware store. The pH color change was considerably darker than the color indicating an 8. Nitrogen & phosphorous had barely any color, indicating very low amounts of either & potash was right in the middle. Another indicator is drainage. There are a number of holes in the yard from where the previous owner removed the scrubs. When it rains they fill quickly with water (about 6") and take a good 10-12 hours to drain. Its sticky when it's wet & like trying to dig into concrete when its dry. I'm still raking up the left behind rubber mulch, but it hasn't rained for 4 days & it's still wet under those areas. I'm not opposed to clover & mulch in the back yard for this year, but would like to have grass in the front. Thanks for your responses.

OTOH, the LB is a smaller (20"), lighter mower with a guarantee and parts availability for many years. It seems to be a perfect fit for a small yard. I agree about the blade clutch. How hard is it to pull the starter cord once or twice during a cutting if you need to stop to empty a bag or pick up a stick. Just go by one cardinal rule - never mess around with any mower with a running engine. Do you know for certain that the clutch has worked and stopped the blade? Not without picking it up and looking, after which they'll call you 'Stumpy'.:) Plus, you want self-propel rear wheel drive for those hills, and the 10604 has the 'Variable-Speed' RWD drive which is my personal favorite. Same as Personal Pace except you control it manually - squeeze the bail tight for max speed, feather it for slower. When you drop the bail, it's instantly a push-pull mower for those cut-ins. Plus, the OHV Kohler engine is no slouch either. And no blade clutch on the 10604 - that's the 10605.

A lawn master named morpheuspa is caring for two lawns - his and his mother's. His is all improved Elite cultivars. His mother's is contractor grade. The mother's lawn is gorgeous due to his care. I believe he has demonstrated that even contractor grade Kentucky bluegrass can be the best lawn on the block if you get the soil tuned up and follow proper care. In fact here is a pic of his mother's lawn... If you want the best lawn in the neighborhood, then the Logan Labs soil test is necessary. New seed may not be necessary. I would see what you can accomplish this summer and, about mid-August, decide whether you need different grass. Renovating is a lot of work followed by a lot of stress waiting for the seed to come in. Then you are faced with a 3-year wait as the grass plants mature. If you already have mature grass, I would just make the very best of it first before jumping into the pool of renovation. But also necessary is mastering the basics of lawn care as follows... Basics of Lawn Care After reading numerous books and magazines on lawn care, caring for lawns at seven houses in my life, and reading numerous forums where real people write in to discuss their successes and failures, I have decided to side with the real people and dispense with the book and magazine authors. I don't know what star their planet rotates around but it's not mine. With that in mind, here is the collected wisdom of the Internet savvy homeowners and lawn care professionals summarized in a few words. If you follow the advice here you will have conquered at least 50% of all lawn problems. Once you have these three elements mastered, then you can worry about weeds (if you have any), dog spots, and striping your lawn. But if you are not doing these three things, they will be the first three things suggested for you to correct. Watering Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an inch in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. Do not spread this out and water for 10 minutes every day. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. If that does not work, then you might have to water more than once per week during the summer's hottest period. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds. You will have to learn to judge when to water your own lawn. If you live in Las Vegas your watering will be different than if you live in Vermont. Adjust your watering to your type of grass, humidity, wind, and soil type. It is worth noting that this technique is used successfully by professionals in Phoenix, so...just sayin.' The other factors make a difference. If you normally water 1 inch per week and you get 1/2 inch of rain, then adjust and water only 1/2 inch that week. Mowing Every week mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. However, bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses will become the most dense when they are mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. In fact there are special mowers that can mow these grasses down to 1/16 inch. Dense grass shades out weeds, keeps the soil cooler, and uses less water than thin grass. Tall grass can feed the deep roots you developed in #1 above. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass nor does it look shaggy sooner. Once all your grass is at the same height, tall grass just looks plush. Fertilizing Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 5 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. Follow the directions on the bag and do not overdo it. Too little is better than too much. At this point you do not have to worry about weed and feed products - remember at this point you are just trying to grow grass, not perfect it. Besides once you are doing these three things correctly, your weed problems should go away without herbicide. It is too late to fertilize with chemical fertilizers this summer; however, you can still fertilize with organics all summer long. You can start with organics before you get your soil test back - you will always have a nitrogen deficiency. Between the basic lawn care (water and mowing), organic ferts, and the corrections to micro nutrients prescribed by the soil test, your lawn should look amazing by August. You can introduce yourself to organic lawn care by applying alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. No, you won't be overrun by rabbits. They only eat rabbit food when confined and fed nothing else. Get the alfalfa pellets at any feed store. Check prices between rabbit chow and alfalfa pellets. They are the same product but sometimes there is a difference from brown bag to brown bag. Spray the soap and molasses and you are officially on your way.

You can't know how much trouble you saved yourself by writing in here before doing anything else. Your worst problem is you have dallisgrass, not crabgrass. Crabgrass would die normally at the first frost, but not dallisgrass. It is a perennial and will take over quickly if you don't stop it. Since it is a grass, anything you use to kill it will also kill your bermuda. But since you have bermuda, it will grow back without doing anything else. Your second worst problem is the St Augustine weed. It, too, will take over under certain conditions. You don't have to do those, but unless you go the extra mile, a properly cared for bermuda lawn infested with St Aug will always look weedy. Possibly the easiest way to get rid of it is to make it sick. That's easy because all you have to do is cover it with some newspaper and wet it down every night. Leave the paper on for about a week and you should start to see lesions on the grass blades that look like the spots on this grass. Once you see that you can peel the paper off and let Nature take its course. The disease will spread throughout the St Aug and wipe it out. Since it does not come back from seed, once it's gone, it's gone. Bermuda might get the disease, but St Aug gets it fast and furious. It will die out in a month or so. If you get a freeze before it all dies out this year, the disease will come back next spring to get the rest of it. The bermuda will fill in as fast as the St Augustine dies out. Now the problem you don't know you have, and the problem that could easily become your biggest problem, is seeding into your existing bermuda. DO NOT DO THAT. Bermuda needs no seed. Once you have it, you practically have it for life. The problem with seeding into it is that the seed is very nearly a different species of plant from the grass you already have. What you have is a very good hybrid called Tif 419. What you get in seed is a variety of common bermuda seeds. The two plants do not mix well together. And I happen to have a picture of that, too. The fine bladed grass is Tif 419. The coarse bladed stuff running over top of the Tif is an invasion of common bermuda. As with St Augustine, once you have a mix of Tif with common, it always looks weedy. Find the Bermuda Bible online and memorize it. There are things you should be doing all the time. I can summarize: Every month: fertilize with a high nitrogen fertilizer Every week: water deeply 2x per week: mow But get the BB, it will explain when not to do those things. For your shady area you do want St Augustine. If you get a dwarf variety you can mow at the same height as the bermuda. If you cannot get a dwarf, then it is best to mow St Aug at the mower's highest setting (4 inches). St Aug is much less intensive to care for: Memorial Day: fertilize with a regular fertilizer (not weed-n-feed) Every week after the temps get high: water once, deeply, and mulch mow high Labor Day: fertilize with a regular fertilizer Thanksgiving: fertilize with a regular fertilizer By the way, centipede grass is out of the question in Dallas' alkaline soils.