Neighbours St Augustine Grass overtaking my yard
manibhat
15 years ago
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okcdan
15 years agoiforgotitsonevermind
15 years agoRelated Discussions
How can I get rid of other grass growing in my St. Augustine
Comments (8)I was thinking the same thing. You can't get rid of bermudagrass without killing the St. Augustine. The good news is the St. Augustine stolons grow a half inch a day in the summer. So killing the yard and starting over wouldn't take long. You say the front yard is nearly perfect so in the perfect areas use some of your yard as a nursery and plug the back. The front will recover quickly and the back will soon be looking as good as the front. The key is using the top labeled amount which could range from 3 to 5 ounces per gallon. Then to use it as soon as you can then in about 2 weeks. You should have pretty much wiped out the back lawn. I would then cut the grass as low as possible then plug all you can. Keep it well moist and then wait. I would think by the end of next year you should have a solid back yard. Good luck....See MoreWhat kind of grass is taking over my st. augustine
Comments (10)Botanbill, while I appreciate, sincerely, your input, if you live on sugar sand dunes and he/she doesn't, things could be different. It sounds like you and the OP might be relative neighbors, but I've been here a loooong time. FL is one of those places where you can't assume anything about the soil in different parts of the state. Tampa is one of those places where if you guess, you're probably wrong. While I expect sand, there are a bazillion lakes and ponds around there. Those don't form on pure sand, so there's a strong possibility he/she has something else. jmandawg, Do you get puddles when it rains? Do you still water even if you get rain? That does seem like an excessive watering frequency. If you can get your grass roots retrained to grow deeper in the soil, I strongly suspect you can restrict your watering to once a week or even less often. But if you're on sugar sand, then botanicalbill is going to have more to say about it. When I backfilled my back yard I used what amounts to sugar sand. It's 8 inches deep at the deepest, which I realize your soil is probably 80 feet deep, but still - it's sand for the entire grass root zone. That sand grows the best grass I have. After 12 years of organics the sand is black when you look at it, but when you put it in a jar of water, all the white sand sinks immediately to the bottom and all the black organic stuff floats to the top. That grass gets watered once every other week unless it rains. So far this year it's only been watered by me twice. We got some heavy rains and it really hasn't needed more. jmandawg again, generally the world gets by watering deeply and infrequently. Generally that means watering one inch of water, all at one time, and doing it once a week when temps are in the 90s. Other factors to consider are soil type, soil depth, grass type, grass height (yours should be mowed at the mower's highest setting), shade, clouds, wind, humidity, organic content of the soil, and some others. After taking all this into consideration, there are only a few places where the general advice would differ. One of those places is the area from Green River, Utah south to the Mexican border and west to Indio, CA and east to Junction, TX. That area is different because the soil is often gravelly. The sand is coarse and really does not hold any water. If Florida is another location where the general guidance does not apply, I have not heard about it. But I am certainly willing to listen to actual experience of people who have tried to grow deep roots and still required frequent watering. I'm still interested in the soil conditions for jmandawg....See MoreSt Augustine Grass - better now, but what do I do next?
Comments (1)Most organic fertilizers provide everything the plant needs. You could fine tune it I suppose but I definitely don't. Morpheuspa is an advocate of winterizing the lawn at the end of fall. The end of fall is defined as that moment when you notice the grass has stopped growing but is not dormant yet. In Florida that day may never come if you continue fertilizing and watering weekly. I know in San Antonio it is a rare (cold) winter when we cannot maintain a St Augustine lawn all through the year. Most people choose to let it go dormant, but you don't have to. I would think in FL it would be a very rare time. If you want to winterize, use a fast release fertilizer that is heavy on the N value and much lighter on the other values. I believe he uses an uncoated urea product. If you are mowing at your mower's highest setting, the bermuda should be fading out. It does not like to compete with the tall, coarse, St Augustine blades....See MoreBrown Spot Fungus in my St Augustine (Palmetto) type grass.
Comments (1)One application of fungus control will not kill the fungus. You need multiple applications 2 weeks apart. Also important is what time of day you are watering. If you are only watering for 15 minutes (which is not really long enough to get water down in the soil) you should be able to water during the early morning so the grass has a chance to dry out. Does the fence shade the spot? Can you eliminate watering that area?...See Morelou_spicewood_tx
15 years agoiforgotitsonevermind
15 years ago
dchall_san_antonio
15 years agotexas_weed
15 years agoanne_hamlin1978
3 years agodchall_san_antonio
3 years agoI believe if you water it normally and mow high, St Augustine will march through and take over almost every grassy plant with the exception of some weeds which have slightly coarser blades and also grow tall. Crabgrass can get a hold and hang on toe to toe, but bermuda and other fine bladed grasses seem to have absolutely no chance against St Aug. Here are two pictures of my current back yard. I have not purchased any St Augustine. At first there was a thin line of it surviving against the concrete patio. I nurtured it along and you can see the results after 5 years.
2014
2019
The St Augustine stops at the line about half way between the dog and the bottom of the picture. I mow the weeds low and the St Aug high, so the line is fairly clear. This year it is down to the bottom of the picture and still spreading. The original "lawn" was a mix of dormant bermuda and prairie grasses like buffalo and the ubiquitous King Ranch bluestem.
anne_hamlin1978
3 years agoanne_hamlin1978
3 years agoanne_hamlin1978
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agodchall_san_antonio
3 years agoIf you put in a solid barrier at the surface, that would give you something to mow and trim against. It could be a metal barrier but a concrete curb barrier would be easier to deal with. These people used concrete to separate their lawn from the neighbor.
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