That will be the LAST time i use winter ryegrass on my lawn. It is just not worth the hassle. I rather have a healthy/lush looking lawn 9 out of 12 months out of the year than having to deal with transitioning 6 months out of the year. I feel that by now, my lawn should be completely lush and thick, it is not. Its really hard to see the rye grass but it is still there, although it is not growing at all. You can only see it close to the pecan tree (upper left of pic), that area gets 6.5 hrs to 7.5 hours of sun. I want to say other than the shade it receives, the reason the perennial rye hasn't disappeared is bc May wasn't terribly hot (mid 80s) and June has been a cloudy/lower 90s month. I was mowing as short as i could too ( around 7/8"). I do gotta say that ANNUAL ryegrass does die much quicker than PERENNIAL. I used annual on my back yard since i have dogs and it died much quicker. Bare spots, installed an irrigation system and added some edging. along the driveway/street i removed about an inch of soil to make the yard level to the driveway. i also lifted up some sod to try to remove old tree roots. Spot leveling: worked out great. used a push broom and a rake. Bermuda grass seems to love to spread out on that sand.

Will it spread fine too? As you can imagine, it looks pretty ridiculous right now.

I'm here. Zone 8 in Texas...you can't be far away. Growing St Aug is very easy once you get the hang of it. There are three elements to it. Watering, mowing, and fertilizing. You did not mention mowing but I suspect you were mowing way too low and that's why your grass died. Otherwise, if your grass was being mowed at the highest setting on the mower, then watering an hour a week, all at once, should have been enough to at least keep it alive. St Aug will do a good job of filling in the areas that are dead now; however, not good enough fast enough. In the spring (late February) I suggest you get some pieces of St Aug sod to cover the areas where it is dead now. They will be a dollar per piece. Get the Floratam variety if you can find it. If you are in San Antonio, Milburger's nursery carries it. They have Floratam Fridays. Putting the sod down is all you need to do to keep new weeds out. St Aug is amazing like that. When you put the sod down, walk on every square inch of it to make sure it has good contact with the soil underneath. Roots will not grow through the air to reach the soil below. Also water it 3x per day for 10 minutes each time. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are perfect times to water. Do that for about 2 weeks and then back off. Eventually in the hottest part of summer you should be watering for an hour a week. If you did that last year and did not get good results, then you need to water more. I water for 3-5 hours per week to get 3/8 to 5/8 inch with my oscillating sprinkler. I am in fairly deep shade on shallow, limestone soil. You'll have to adjust for your conditions. Do not fertilize the new grass until after you have mowed it for the second time. That ensures you are fertilizing actively growing plants and not dormant plants. Mow at the mower's highest setting. You will NEVER have to mow it at any other height. Ever. If you decide to use organic fertilizer, you can apply that in Feb. If you decide to use synthetic fertilizer, you can fertilize in March after the second mowing. Then fertilize again with either one on Memorial Day. If you want to apply fertilizer in the summer, the only choice is organic because the synthetic might burn. Organic will never burn. Do that on July 4th if you do it. Then fertilize again on Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Those are all easy dates to remember. None of this should impact your tree at all. Other than that do not use any weed killers or preventives. If you are mowing at the highest setting and watering infrequently, you should never get weeds. The weeds to watch out for are the broadleaf weeds. While St Aug will out compete grassy weeds, it will not out compete broadleaf weeds. Anything that looks like clover needs to be pulled before it gets started.

The first rule of gardening is to grow plants adapted to your local conditions. Fescue and rye grasses are not adapted to NE Texas. If you have full sunlight, here are your choices: bermuda, hybrid buffalo like UC Verde, St Augustine, or some varieties of zoysia. If you have much shade, your only choice is St Augustine. You can find bermuda seed, but the rest come as sod or plugs. If you use bermuda seed, wait until late May to even think about seeding. You can put the seed down now, but you will be severely disappointed with it until June, when the soil is finally hot enough to germinate the bermuda seed. If you seed in mid June, the seed will be germinating in 3 days. If you do it now, it will be 63 days, give or take. Check your local nurseries to get prices for the alternatives. UC Verde was developed in California and is mostly available there, but I believe they will ship. It's an incredible grass that gets very dense, spreads quickly, and does not develop seed heads or flowers. It's too good to be true, except for the price. That's the way hybrid bermuda sod was when it was first developed, so hopefully the price will come down as more growers see the benefit. My preference is for the Floratam variety of St Augustine. If you have patience, one piece is all you need. It will spread to cover an entire yard in a few years. Here are before and after pictures of my yard in Bandera. Four years later it looked like this. The only St Augustine in the top picture was growing up against the house and patio. All I did was water and fertilize the St Augustine and allowed it to spread.