Also for watering: the soil looks too dry too soon currently. Mine, too--and I have no real problems. The very top surface of the soil dries out really fast in sun and wind, but that doesn't mean there isn't water underneath. You can test that by pushing a screwdriver into the soil. If it goes in fairly easily (barring rocks), your soil is damp. Or drive a small trowel into it and separate it into a V shape by rocking it a little bit. That'll give you a direct visual on how deep the water is. Here would be my plan: for now do very frequent waterings to help really wet the soil, I'm not familiar with California (except for the part about moderate temperatures and no rain), but this doesn't sound like a good idea--it encourages shallow roots and lawn diseases. The standard is 1" of water a week, all at once (well, within a day to allow for on/off cycles to allow the water to penetrate). For sandy soil your mileage will differ because the water wicks out fast and goes very deep very quickly. I will also probably try milorganite as a jump start, as I fear my soil is probably pretty depleted. I swear by it, others don't (it is processed sewage, but heated enough to kill everything in it). The 18 lbs/thousand square feet I put down last weekend kicked in and it's a rainy week. The grass, since Sunday, has grown one and a half inches and gone a deeper green. Once it stops raining, I'll mow. I went high, but I'm going to renovate this fall--with a deep, heavy core aeration I want lots of organics mixing into the holes. I alternate it with alfalfa and soy. When I started (early last year), my soil profile was slightly silty clay, poor drainage, very poor water penetration, hard as a rock, and a light tan. It had been corn field for as long as I could remember prior to building, and even my parents don't remember when it wasn't. Call it 40 years of abuse. Now it's still slightly silty clay (nothing's going to change that short of a renovation down to a foot or more). Drainage is fair to good, penetration is good to excellent, the soil is still hard when dry (it's supposed to be), but spongy when wet. The top half-inch is black, another inch is deep brown, and a good three inches below that have turned a midrange brown. Everything grows better and more strongly. I'm very pleased. Some older photos are here. I have to update them--the grass has improved since these were taken and the season advanced a bit.

Stormy, Very nice. My suggestion would be to put the bandboard up whether or not you go with different colors top and bottom. Perhaps you could consider a different texture siding on the top vs bottom, for example horizontal clapboard on lower, shingles or shakes on top, or vertical plank style siding or board/batten, depending on the style/feel you are looking to achieve. We are doing this with our home, cement clapboard on the bottom, bandboard, then a vertical cement siding, a second bandboard and cedar shingles at the top of the gable. The two sidings will be the same Cabot Mountainbrush (a sagey green/gray) with Navajo White (creamish) trim and white Andersen windows. The shingles will be natural cedar stain. Sorry no pics since we are just in process now of siding and staining, but the effect is vintage/craftsman style. Jill

This time of year, south of 'Frisco,' (I know y'all hate that term, about as much as we hate San Antone, but anyway...) you should be watering no more frequently than once every 4 weeks. Here is a picture of a neighborhood in east PA which is full of contractor grade KBG lawns. The picture was taken in July several years ago. The green lawn was replaced with a non-contractor grade seed, but the main point of difference is that the green lawn is watered once a week (during hottest heat of summer) while the rest are watered every day. Thank you to morpheuspa for the picture. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Neil Sperry is a Texas based garden guru. He has a radio show and is syndicated in many of the big news papers in Texas. Neil Sperry is the bane of my existence. Whatever he says, I do the opposite. I followed him from about 1992 to 2002 and realized my grass looked worse every year. Then I switched to organic and learned a lot about lawn care on this and other forums. He, apparently gets all his information from sponsors selling products. I could make a living following him around to fix the mistakes he has people making. Sunlight - Neil says, St. Augustine needs 4 hours of sunlight daily just to survive, and 6 hours of hot, direct sunlight if you hope for it to grow vigorously. Again, my front lawn in SA had zero hours of sunlight per day for the duration of 25 years. It was under the canopy of several very large live oak trees. For 10 years it deteriorated, and for 15 years under organic fertilizer, it looked great. Here is a picture of my grass grown in the most dense shade in that yard. Looking straight down reveals all the flaws in the turf. What you can see is the grass was growing outward and not upright. When it is in full sun, it grows more upright driven that way by the sheer amount of grass. Here is the same yard from an angle. The house faced north and this is the front yard. There is a huge tree to the left of the walkway and two large trees in the bed to the right. This yard got no direct sunlight at all. You can see grass invading between the bricks and over the concrete. It is not doing poorly. Neil Sperry would say this is impossible. Here is a picture of my current house - back yard, south facing slope in full sun. The grass is dense. You can see the grass needed fertilizer, but besides that...in the foreground is weeds mowed at the mower's lowest setting. You can see the St Augustine runners expanding their territory into the weeds at a rate of about 15 feet per year. You can see the hose and a long handled yard tool sort of buried in the grass. The only reason you can see them is the grass is too dense for the hose and tool to sink farther down. You can tell the depth of the grass on my dog's legs. They are buried to the hock. Drought - Neil says, St. Augustine needs more water than most of our other lawngrasses (fescue excepted). If you let it get too dry, and especially if you do so repeatedly, St. Augustine will be weak, and it may even die away. This is about the worst thing you can say about St Augustine. The main reason is it is bordering on untrue. It "may" die away. St Augustine is not bermuda. Bermuda will come back from no water for a year. Here in Bandera I had a side yard where the St Aug was golden brown. It had been that way for months before I bought the house. I figured it was dead and neglected it for another year, which was a drought year. But when I watered it, the golden runners came to life. It was solid St Augustine. Had this grass been in full sun, it "may" have died away, but for whatever reasons, it came back after getting no irrigation from June to March. Here is a picture from my previous house in George West, TX. The grass is 32 inches high and had not been watered for many months. You can see the top of my dog's tail and her ears (different dog). When you mow St Augustine high, it needs less water. If you don't mow it at all, it needs no water to thrive. Please do not let the so called drought intolerance deter you from St Augustine. Fertilizer - Neil says, in part, ... Most clay soils have excessive amounts of phosphorus (middle number of the analysis), so soil tests usually suggest a high-quality, all-nitrogen fertilizer be added. What the hell? Who has clay in Texas??? Okay, now the OP describes his location as between San Antonio and Del Rio. As it turns out, there is a pocket of clay soil in D'Hanis, TX, along that route, so this might actually pertain, TO HIM, but almost noplace else. Clay soil is a red herring. Get the soil tested if you absolutely cannot grow anything. Otherwise, go with organic fertilizer and see the miracle unfold. Disease - Neil says, Gray leaf spot is a fungal disease that shows up in mid-summer into early fall. You’ll see diamond-shaped, gray-brown lesions on the midribs of the blades and occasionally on the runners themselves. This disease is most prevalent following applications of nitrogen. In fact, the additional symptoms of gray leaf spot are yellowed leaves that look like they need more nitrogen. I get gray leaf spot any time of year. My lawn woke up with it this year in early spring. Caused by too much nitrogen? I get it after months and months of no nitrogen at all. Like now, for instance. The lawns on his St Augustine Diagnostics page are all mowed way too short. Between that and his comments on drought scaring people into watering too much, it's no wonder people have problems with St Aug.