Can my St. Augustine come back?

15 years ago

I moved into this place in October. The previous owner had done a bad job of watering the lawn (St. Augustine) and there were/are some grey patches here and there. A large section of the lawn was under the shade/roots of two large trees I removed in October and was mostly dirt.

In another posting you can see that I've gone the organic route and I've just put down molasses, soy, organic fertilizer (kelp, chicken manure), compost tea, etc. I've just started watering (will do the heavy drenching once a week).

Now, the area that had been underneath the trees is covered in some weeds (they started last fall), tiny ones, almost like moss/clover.

Anyway, I wasn't worried at all because I've been living under the assumption that the St. Augstine will, soon, start to grow and fill out the empty spaces and take over the weeds. I'm in no rush, 2-3 years.

BUT today I had a gardener over and she said I had little shot, that the St. Augustine was not going to win.

I'm thinking about hiring a lawn consultant type but I'm just worried about them being mmm economically conflicted.

Any thoughts?

Comments (9)

texas_weed
15 years ago
Re sod the area with SA are my two-cents worth.
barten
Original Author
15 years ago
Do you say that because it will speed it up or because my chances are low without doing the re-sod?
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How hard could your freeze have been? Was it worse than 19 degrees for several nights in a row? Year after year we get many nights of "hard freeze" and I've never seen a lawn that did not recover. I do see many people renovating their lawns this spring. After not watering for two full years, a lot of lawns were lost and became weed patches. Even the guy down the street who never waters ever renovated his lawn. Now he's diligently watering every day. It will be interesting to see what happens when he reverts to not watering. I suspect you have other problems. How often do you normally water? How low do you mow? How often do you fertilize? What is carpet grass? Around here St Augustine is called carpet grass. Bermuda will not be a problem unless you mow the St Aug low. If you let it get high, the bermuda will disappear. As long as St Aug gets water regularly, it will predominate. And how do you have 350 neighbors? Let's see, 350 neighbors at 1 acre each is 350 acres or 30 acres more than half a section. I suppose that is possible.
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My house was on the back of a 1-acre lot on the edge of town. The only tall grass was back by the house, so you had to stop and look kinda hard to see that the grass was that tall. If you were going to be offended, you had to stop and make a big deal out of it. When it's all the same height, it still looks manicured, especially at a distance. Well it turns out there was an ordinance against eyesore lots. The ordinance had words to the effect that you could not have piles of junk with weeds, grass, or plants growing 18 inches high. We all know what this ordinance is there for - so people will not toss their junk on the street and let grass and weeds grow up through it. I did not have piles of junk. I could walk down my street and find at least 5 other houses with piles of trash and weeds growing up through them for 6 months or more. The problem with my house is that it used to belong to a prominent lady in local politics and the church. She was one of those "GET OFF MY LAWN" people who took exceptional pride in the appearance of the yard. She passed away and it went to hell. A guy bought the house to rent the rooms and I bought from him. He let half the lawn die completely. All this happened so fast that the neighbors and friends of the original lady seriously resented my "letting the lawn go." So I was selected for one-time enforcement of the ordinance. I showed up at a city hall meeting and convinced them they needed to print a lot more signs and enforce the rules everywhere in town. They did that and quickly overwhelmed the enforcement employees. I also took issue with the word, plants, in the ordinance. Strict wording of the ordinance would prohibit any plants taller than 18 inches. Everyone has plants taller than that. I started mowing the lawn down to 17 inches to test my skills at passive aggression. A year later they rewrote the ordinance taking the plant/grass/weed height down to 12 inches. So I mowed at 11 inches. Mowing that high takes a string trimmer and actually goes pretty fast - much faster than mowing with a mower. So it was nice for awhile and then not so much fun, but I did learn a lot about lawn care.
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Ideally you should start a new topic. I believe you did not get a normal amount of rain this winter. Have you been watering? I ask because I see some nut grass in the pictures, and nutgrass prefers really wet roots. Once you start watering deeply and infrequently, the nutgrass should go away/dormant without doing anything else. Raise your mower all the way to the top. The top is around 4 inches, but it it is 6 inches, so much the better. Look up above in this thread to the picture of my back yard with the cat in it. See how the cat is nestled down into the grass. In fact, since this is your back yard, you don't have to mow it at all. St Augustine will grow up to 32 inches tall. It's not a lot of fun to play in, but the point is the grass will do very well even when left alone. In mid April spray the yard with this product from Walmart. Atrazine is the important ingredient. This herbicide will wipe out everything except the St Augustine and bermuda. Spray on a day with little wind, walk backwards when you spray, and walk into the wind so any wind carries the spray away from you. This is a leaf misting spray, not a soil drench. You don't have to spray longer where the weeds are. It takes about 3 weeks before you realize all the weeds are dead and gone. If you are watering deeply and infrequently, both grasses should thrive. Ultimately the St Augustine will march through the bermuda and choke it out, because the tall St Augustine provides too much shade onto the common bermuda. This will take a few years or you can buy new St Augustine sod to speed up the process. You should not ever need to reseed into bermuda. If you have bermuda and it's not doing well, you're doing something wrong and even new seed will struggle. Besides, for you in Covina the best time to put down bermuda seed is in late June and July. If you put seed down now it won't germinate until late June or July when the soil is hot enough. Two more things: First, spray your yard with baby shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. If your yard is 1,000 square feet, put 3 ounces into the bottle of a hose end sprayer, fill the bottle with water, set the adjuster on any spray flow, and spray it all out evenly until it is gone. You can use any clear shampoo - it doesn't have to be baby shampoo. Whatever Dollar Tree has and you like the fragrance is fine. Second, call these feed stores to see if they have corn meal, soybean meal, or alfalfa pellets (ask for rabbit chow). Get prices for a 50 pound bag. Any one of these materials will do, so pick any one you like and spread it at a rate of 15 to 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Corn meal will be the cheapest at under $10. If they quote you $20 or $30, they're talking about corn gluten meal, not ordinary cornmeal. CGM works, too, but it costs more. All these are organic fertilizers. I think I mentioned to wait until late May to fertilize. If you use an organic, you can do it NOW (two weeks ago). Your soil looks gray and not healthy. If you want to get a soil test, send it to Logan Labs in Ohio. I know UCR and UCD do soil testing in California, but Logan Labs performs more tests on the soil for less money than the universities do. Get the $25 test. Let us know and we'll tell you where to send the results for a free reading telling you all about the soil. As a side note, it looks like someone has topdressed your yard too many times with too much soil. The soil level looks about 1.5 inches too high. It should be down closer to the edge of the concrete. If you ever chose to renovate, you should be removing soil and not bringing in more.
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lou_spicewood_tx
15 years ago
Pictures would help. If the runners(stolons) are brown, they are dead. If you live in southern half of Texas, get Floratam. Fast grower. Will fill in fast when properly maintained. Mine does pretty good up in Dallas area although they are not sold up here because of "poor" cold tolerance (most likely due to poor maintenance by homeowners). Turf expert from A&M turf research place in Dallas has Floratam for many years and survived low single digit temperature at his house.

Here is a link that might be useful: Floratam st augustine
barten
Original Author
15 years ago
Here are some pics:

In this one you can see that there _is_ some green grass. That amount is growing everyday...lots of weeds...some places are better than others.

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lou_spicewood_tx
15 years ago
You have dead grass. Brown stolons means dead unfortunately. Where are you located exactly? Maybe I can help you find Floratam st augustine pieces to plant in random spots and let them fill in.

It would have to be warm and moist for dead grass to break down. Molasses will speed up decay.

I may be tempted to use synthetic fertilizer instead to speed up growth. Lesco 15-5-10 from Home Depot would be fine for now and worry about organic later.
barten
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the help. I live in Dallas, lawn faces the south so full Texas sun. If I put down pieces of sod, how much do you think I need to put down? I have 10,000 sq feet of front lawn so....

I assume when you put it down you can cut into 6x6 pieces and make them flush with the rest and at some point they all meet?
Man what a mess :)
lou_spicewood_tx
15 years ago
Bummer. You live too far up north. The farthest north I'm aware is in Conroe that I picked up to plant at my mom's in Houston. I don't really know what else to recommend except order them online from lawnplug website. Sapphire and Floratam fill in VERY fast compared to Palmetto and Raleigh. I used to have Palmetto in the backyard but it got a virus and started dying off. Raleigh seems to be prone to fungal disease as I've observed my neighbors' Raleigh lawn. I have Sapphire in my front yard and so far, I haven't seen any problems after 2 years. Floratam that I got by accident filled in rapidly after Palmetto have died off.

I would just plug in every 5 feet because they Sapphire and Floratam fill in rapidly. 10,000 sqft... wow. That's more than my size lot. Can't imagine trying to water that much for that size with the drought...
barten
Original Author
15 years ago
I found this place just 30 minutes from me: TurfGrass America.
The lady there said that this would work best for our area:
http://www.turfgrassamerica.com/iProduct.aspx?ProdID=126
St. Augustine Del Mar , description at the bottom of this note.

It says vigorous, I'll have to find out what that means exactly. $170 for a pallet...which if it can do every 5 feet would be enough I think. I'm on a 2 year schedule so I know it'll eventually get there.

Yes, it is a big lawn and I am worried about the water. I'm considering either rainwater collection and/or reverse osmosis from a nearby creek!

St. Augustine
DelMarÂ®
Stenotaphrum secundatum
DelMarÂ® St. Sugustine
DelMarÂ® St. Augustine is a vigorous, dark emerald green, medium-coarse textured lawn grass. It is one of the most cold tolerant varieties of St. Augustine making it a great choice in colder climates such as Dallas/Ft. Worth, and has very good shade tolerance. It also grows well in full sun. DelMarÂ® turns golden brown in its dormancy. DelMarÂ® tests at the top of National testing in overall quality among St. Augustines. DelMarÂ® is the highest ranking cold tolerant, St. Augustine Decline Disease Free St. Augustine grass available.
DelMarÂ® St. Augustine is a vigorous, dark emerald green, medium-coarse textured lawn grass. It is one of the most cold tolerant varieties of St. Augustine making it a great choice in colder climates such as Dallas/Ft. Worth, and has very good shade tolerance. It also grows well in full sun. DelMarÂ® turns golden brown in its dormancy. DelMarÂ® tests at the top of National testing in overall quality among St. Augustines. DelMarÂ® is the highest ranking cold tolerant, St. Augustine Decline Disease Free St. Augustine grass available.
Area: 1, 2, 3, & 4
Intended Use: Residential & Commercial
Availability: Sod
Mowing Height: 3" Optimum
lou_spicewood_tx
15 years ago
Trust me. Delmar is VERY slow spreading variety so not very good as plug type.

Can my St. Augustine come back?

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texas_weed

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Can my St. Augustine come back?

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