This is one area where it came in great, then died

Yeah, I can guarantee you won't find another message from someone in your situation. First of all we very rarely ever get someone writing in from so close to the Pacific. San Francisco is rare as is sand dunes. I used to live 3 mi from the ocean in Los Angeles (Hawthorne, CA). I'm familiar with the fog situation.

In your situation you already have built in bumps and holes. You might be the very rare exception to the no-till rule. Even normally sand would not need to be tilled because it is sand and doesn't for a structure, but yours has gopher holes. Is there any way to collapse those holes without tilling?

See that black stuff you mentioned near the surface? That is all organic matter. If you scooped a cup of the surface black stuff and dropped it into a pickle jar of water, at the bottom you would have white sand and the black would all float on top. If you rototilled you would lose all that black richness and stir it into the rest of the soil. So that is the biggest argument to not rototill.

The beauty of rototilling dune sand is you can level it and trust that it will not ever settle and become bumpy.

Do you have your seed bag to tell us what seed varieties you planted? I'm not sure it really matters, but as close as you are to the ocean, you might be able to get good germination without the normal heat issues. Still some varieties are not particularly recommended.

Is shade an issue at all for you?

Find the Organic Lawn Care FAQ either on the Internet or in the Organic Gardening forum. That should give your wife hope that there is a future in organic lawn care. Thousands of people have converted to organics based on that document.

The watering mantra is to water deep and infrequently. For most people deep means 1 full inch. Infrequent means monthly in the cool months and weekly in the deep heat of summer. As the saying goes, I've never spent a winter as cold as a summer in San Francisco. You might still be able to go monthly especially with morning fog. It really depends on your sand, shade, grass, mowing height, wind, fog, and rain. The idea is to have water deep in the soil but still allow the surface to completely dry out before watering again. That keeps weeds from sprouting and taking root.

More to say but need to run now.

Looking at the pics of your new grass, it appears that your seeding rate was very high. Do you know how much seed you used for your yard? If you seed too heavily, you can get fungal issues since the young grass is too dense, and never dries out. Pythium blight and damping out are particularly harmful to young grass, and common with seeding rates above the recommended amount. Not sure of what the temps are like in July where you live, but it may have been the wrong time, but with all the microclimes in your area it might be OK. Grubs are probably not an issue with grass that new since the roots are too small to be affected by the grubs. Grub death is usually a slower process too, while fungus can wreck a lawn in a few days. Tall fescue is probably a good choice for your area since it can tolerate shade or low light conditions, as well as heat, and will stay green for you year round. The sandy soil will allow it to develop deep roots which means it won't require a lot of water when mature.

If your yard faces south and has little shade, then Kentucky bluegrass would work as an alternative to the fescue mentioned by tiemco.

Yeah, blight/fungus seems like the call. We definitely overseeded . . . really didn't even occur to us that that could be an issue until after the fact. The photo I just posted is the same area, now two weeks later since I snapped the first. Similar issues all along where the new growth is dying off.

- How do I kill the fungus?

Here's the breakdown of the seed I used

And the front of the bag

And the front of the bag

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House faces East, yard has a fairly direct east to west exposure to the sun, though there's a house at the back too. in the Northwest corner is a cherry tree, but it only shades the NW 15% of the grass in mid to late afternoon. So every spot gets at least 3 hours of direct sun/daylight exposure, some more.

Quick question - overcast/fog is not the same as shade when it comes to it's effect on grass? Correct?

The organic approach to killing fungus is to use ordinary corn meal at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Use it once and follow up again 3 weeks later. You can usually find corn meal at a feed store. Your nearest feed store is not close. Usually urban areas still have down town feed stores because your county sheriff will have a mounted posse. Click here to find your nearest feed store. Call first to see if they have ordinary corn meal. There is another corn meal product that gets confused with the regular stuff. What you do not want is corn gluten meal.

Another possibility to find ordinary corn meal is to find a Hispanic grocery store. They sell corn flour but sometimes it is adulterated with baking soda and baking powder to make tortillas. Get the plain corn flour in 25-pound sacks.

When you apply corn meal, do the entire yard. You don't know where the fungus starts and stops. Corn is an organic fertilizer so it certainly does no harm. Also you can over apply freely without fear of hurting anything. If you apply more than your soil can decompose quickly, you will get the sour aroma of decomposing protein. That will go away, but you want to minimize that situation. The smell is the smell of ammonia disappearing. That nitrogen does more good in the soil than in the air. Next time you apply you will have to apply a lot more to get that same smell, because the population of soil microbes that decompose it will be increased.

There is one more thing I would not rule out. Your photo was right by some concrete. Concrete will heat up during the day and remain warm all night. That continual warmth will evaporate more moisture from that soil next to the concrete which requires more water in those areas. Keep an eye out for that.

Ah, the old Barenbrug mix, I believe you can find the same thing at Home Depot under the Vigoro label. It contains average performers, nothing great, and the water saver and RTF labels are more about selling seed than anything else.

"When we reseeded we used a water saver RTF blend that was recommended by a well regarded local gardening shop (Sloat Garden Center.) "

Most garden centers know very little about grass seed, and will tout the stuff they carry, that's how they make money. Nothing wrong with the cultivars, but they're nothing special, and there are cultivars that test much better than those in your blend.

Tiemco - ah, I've begun suspecting as much. Where's the best place to turn for seeds, and what should I go with? In the photo attached, the grass to the right side is what it seems like is the best performing in the yard. Is this tall fescue?

Tiemco - ah, I've begun suspecting as much. Where's the best place to turn for seeds, and what should I go with? In the photo attached, the grass to the right side is what it seems like is the best performing in the yard. Is this tall fescue?

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