Whoa! Surprised me!! Then it must be a mix of fescue (the green stuff) and Kentucky bluegrass (the brown, dormant stuff). Here are the basics of lawn care. Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an hour in every zone, all at once. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. 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. Mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. Bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses are the most dense when mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. Dense grass shades out weeds and uses less water when tall. Dense grass feeds the deep roots you're developing in 1 above. Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 4 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above.

Hello GW! Can anyone help out with what type of grass I have? I posted my front yard 2 minutes ago and this is now my front yard. Looking to reseed some areas and need to first figure out what type of I have. Thanks very much!

hoovb is right. 90% chance it is Marathon dwarf fescue. It could be Marathon, Marathon II, or Marathon III. They get dwarfier with higher numbers. Now, having said that, fescue is now and forever was, the wrong grass for the inland areas of SoCal. For me, inland means anywhere east of the 405 freeway or I-5 or the coastal range of mountains/foothills (whichever is closer to the beach). You are on the wrong side of I-5 and the coastal range. What you should have is either bermuda or St Augustine. Both of those are heat loving plants. Fescue is a cool weather grass which has been made to work only with daily watering. With either bermuda or St Aug you can get back to weekly watering even in the summer's hottest heat. With your drought you should be thinking of alternatives to fescue. Now about this crabgrass you say you have...do you get seed heads every week or two? Are the blades pointy before you mow or are they more rounded? I'm asking because St Aug is often mistaken for crabgrass because they are both coarse bladed varieties of grass. St Aug has the rounded tips and no seed heads (very rare). All other grasses have pointy tips. If what you have is St Augustine and you are willing to go and grow that, then you don't have to do much of anything and it will take over. St Aug will dominate every other grassy plant with proper care (mulch mow at mower's highest setting, water once a week in the heat and much less often in the cool months, and fertilize 3x per year). If you would like to change to bermuda, you can get bermuda seed very cheap or you can get bermuda sod. The sod is a much MUCH better variety of grass and should never be mixed with the seeded varieties. Seeded bermuda is the grass people complain about. Sodded bermuda is the grass everyone wishes they had. In SoCal they use sodded bermuda for golf greens. Bermuda takes a lot more care than St Aug if you want it to look nice, but it has the advantage of not dying when it goes completely without water for several months.

Nutz. Lol. That should be fine. Let's bring Lucy in because there is a little 'splaining to do: Spreader settings for a fertilizer product are based on (1) Prill size (the diameter of the little beads of the product) and (2) the percent of the controlling nutrient content in the product. (this is the highest of the three numbers, X-X-X. For most products this will be N, the first number.) Although lawn nuts shoot for one pound, in most cases this will result in less than one pound of nutrient per 1k sq ft. in most do it yourself homeowner aimed products like Scotts. They like to play safe. For instance, Scotts Turfbuilder 32-0-4, 12.5 lb. bag for 5k sq ft. = (12.5/5)X.32 will result in .8lbs of N per 1k sq ft.; or Milorganite 5-2-0, 36 lb bag for 2.5K sq ft = (36/2.5)X.05 will result in .72 lbs of N per 1k sq ft. Moving on. Prill size. Most products come in a standard prill size. You need to determine if the prill size of the triple 12 is the same as the Scotts or JG. Take a palm full of the triple 12 and a palm full of the Scotts or the JG and compare. Keep in mind that due to the manufacturing process, there will be some prills slightly smaller than the majority and some larger. If prills of the triple 12 are very similar, proceed on. % nutrient. Determine the amount of triple 12 nutrient that will be applied when using the Scotts or JG product spreader setting. As an example, using Scotts Step 3, Scotts recomends using the 3.5 setting for the Scotts Edgeguard spreader and the 12.5 lb bag will cover 5000 sq ft, so...12.5/5 = 2.5 lbs of product will be spread over 1k sq ft at a 3.5 setting. For triple 12 (if prill size is the same) that means using a setting of 3.5 will result in 2.5X.12=.3lbs of N and P and K being applied to to 1k sq ft of lawn. At the 3.5 setting you will need to make three passes to apply .9lbs/sq ft of N, P and K---about as close to the 1lb of NPK as you are going to get. HOWEVER, as you are applying the triple for the purpose of applying Pand K for root growth and as root growth is maximized when soil temps are 55 to 65F AND as P binds very quickly and its availability is thereby reduced, you may want to divide the three apps and spread them out over the month of October for maximum benefit. WARNING: The fact that a setting of 3.5 results in 2.5 lbs of product does NOT mean that a setting of 7 will result in the application of 5lbs of product. There are are number of methods to calibrate your spreader: Google "spreader calibration". Too much work and/or mess for me though.