Basics of Lawn Care After reading numerous books and magazines on lawn care, caring for lawns at seven houses in my life, and reading numerous forums where real people write in to discuss their successes and failures, I have decided to side with the real people and dispense with the book and magazine authors. I don't know what star their planet rotates around but it's not mine. With that in mind, here is the collected wisdom of the Internet savvy homeowners and lawn care professionals summarized in a few words. If you follow the advice here you will have conquered at least 50% of all lawn problems. Once you have these three elements mastered, then you can worry about weeds (if you have any), dog spots, and striping your lawn. But if you are not doing these three things, they will be the first three things suggested for you to correct. Watering 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. Do not spread this out and water for 10 minutes every day. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. If that does not work, then you might have to water more than once per week during the summer's hottest period. 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. You will have to learn to judge when to water your own lawn. If you live in Las Vegas your watering will be different than if you live in Vermont. Adjust your watering to your type of grass, humidity, wind, and soil type. It is worth noting that this technique is used successfully by professionals in Phoenix, so...just sayin.' The other factors make a difference. If you normally water 1 inch per week and you get 1/2 inch of rain, then adjust and water only 1/2 inch that week. Mowing Every week mulch mow at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. However, bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses will become the most dense when they are mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. In fact there are special mowers that can mow these grasses down to 1/16 inch. Dense grass shades out weeds, keeps the soil cooler, and uses less water than thin grass. Tall grass can feed the deep roots you developed in #1 above. Tall grass does not grow faster than short grass nor does it look shaggy sooner. Once all your grass is at the same height, tall grass just looks plush. Fertilizing Fertilize regularly. I fertilize 5 times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. Follow the directions on the bag and do not overdo it. Too little is better than too much. At this point you do not have to worry about weed and feed products - remember at this point you are just trying to grow grass, not perfect it. Besides once you are doing these three things correctly, your weed problems should go away without herbicide. ------------------ Okay it's me now. Looks like too watering too frequently. At this time of year once a week might be too often. I'd be looking at every 14 days or more. Don't feel the soil to determine the watering. Watch for the grass to dry out. If it is not drying out, then wait. Your soil should be dry and hard for many days before you water again. Your lawn is either fescue, Kentucky bluegrass, or both. With that location and the proximity of the shade, any Kentucky bluegrass will die out. That is a fescue area because of the wall blocking half the day's sunlight. With that in mind you should be raising your mowing height all the way to the top. The reel mower is not great for mowing high. Good for mowing low but that's not your grass. Do not seed this time of year. If you need seed, wait until late August. You cannot have grubs yet. The grubs show up several weeks after the June bugs swarm your porch light. If you don't have any June bugs, then you can't have any grubs. That's not a universal truth but it is fairly useful for most people. And on that line of thought, please don't try to prevent problems you think you might have. Wait until you have the problem. The fungus problem is pretty apparent. I have a suggestion if you are interested in an organic solution. tiemco will disagree based wisely on his experience. My experience is 180 degrees opposite to his. This time I'll wait for him to suggest something.

KBG will look brown under heat stress. When you say you live in NoCal, where is that exactly? If you tell me you live in Sac'to or the Bay Area, I would argue that you live in north Central Cal. It is kind of important. If you live in Redding or to the north or west, or up in the mountains, that is different, too. Fescue will never fill in anything. Fescue is a bunch type grass that just sits there for practically decades before enlarging the one plant. The idea with planting fescue is to get enough plants that when they grow to their diameter of 1 inch (max) that you have enough plants to become dense. KBG on the other hand will form a dense blanket and fill in anywhere a fescue plant dies. Did they roll the sod down with a water filled roller? If not it is not too late to do that. The sod must have contact with the underlying soil. Roots will not grow through the air to reach the soil underneath. You should be watering 3x per day for about 10 minutes each time, until the roots knit into the underlying soil. Then you can start to deep water. Deep watering means you soak the soil down deep by applying 1 full inch of water all at one time. Then allow the soil to dry out at the surface for about a week (this time of year - and depending on where you are in NoCal). Then water again a full inch. Set your mower to the highest setting or one notch down. Short grass gets much more heat and drought stress than tall grass. In fact you can set it all the way up and go 2 weeks between mowing if you want. Are you going to fertilize with organics or with chemicals? You can have a spectacular lawn back there if you water, mow, and fertilize properly. And if you are doing that, then you will hardly ever need herbicide, insecticide, or fungicide.

bopsy, Is your soil clayish or sandy? Or regular soil? Centipede sod does really well over sandy soil. Centipede doesn't go dormant at all, when it dies, it dies. It needs lots of water when it is established, and you just laid your sod in this heat, so water it real good many times a day, if you are using a regular old fashioned sprinkler, you are moving it around in sections all day long I guess. You are not over watering it. Don't let it dry, did you feel that you could easily just pull up the sod? No rooting at all yet? The landscaper is going to blame you if the sod dies, and I'm sorry to tell you it looks like some of it is dying. I have a horrible time with centipede and I live with poor sandy soil, just the soil centipede is meant for. It never rains where I live, so the grass suffers. Good Luck with it, keep watering it til it roots in, whatever is alive. When it does take hold, it is aggresive grass, and will recover nicely, just water it 1 1/2 inches of water per week, more than other grasses, and it will grow nice. I actually had centipede growing up my fence, honest, that is how aggresive it can be. LOL!

Do you have a pic? That might help. What I've noticed, if you let grass grow too long and then cut it, you get brown spots. You might need to keep up with more frequent watering. It takes time for the sod to grow deep roots to be able to handle infrequent watering. Also, was the soil properly prepared before they laid the sod?