Weeds in a neglected Saint Augustine Lawn

9 years ago

Hello,

I just moved into a house near Jacksonvile, FL. The lawn has been totally neglected. I have uploaded photographs of the bad areas in the hope that someone can help identify the different weeds I have encountered and suggest possible solutions. The last picture (6) show some sod that I planted about 2 weeks ago. Half of it looks great and the other half look brown, although it is greening a little after i put on extra water. I am watering once a day. Will this recover. Thanks

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (7)

lou_spicewood_tx
9 years ago
I believe that is coarse bladed zoysia. Not sure if it is too hot to use weed killer end hose sprayer??? First picture looks like crabgrass so look for weedkiller specifically for it. Make sure to do some research of when to apply weed killer at certain temperature.

Try one time application of 15-5-10 then go with organic fertilizer from there on.

Water weekly at 1 inch (600 gallons per 1000 sqft) if needed. Watering everyday will make weed problems worse.
dchall_san_antonio
9 years ago
If it is St Augustine, daily water will lead to disease and dead lawn.

1. does look like crabgrass taken through a lens with Vasoline on it.
2. don't know
3. horse herb. This stuff will take over in St Augustine.
4. if the blade tips are blunt, then St Augustine. If they are pointed, then either zoysia or centipede. Centipede only grows under very bad conditions, so to get that dense it would have to be pretty neglected. If it responds well to fertilizer and water, then it is not centipede.
5. dunno
6. sand and thin St Aug - at least it looks like it from that altitude and focus level.

If that is St Augustine or centipede, the herbicide I would suggest is this one.

{{gwi:86656}}

Read the directions carefully. This stuff is not something you want to get on you. You can only apply once a year. If it is too hot now, then wait until it cools off in the fall - read the directions.

If you apply the chemical fert that lou suggested, you could go ahead and apply alfalfa pellets at the same time. App rate for YOU, first app of alfalfa, is 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet. That is because your soil has no nuthin in it. Wait 3 weeks and then you could apply at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet thereafter. If you want it to improve at record speed, apply the alfalfa monthly for the rest of the season.

Put some cat food or tuna cans out and time how long it takes your sprinkler to fill them. That is your target time for watering. The day you do that test is day 1. Then watch the grass carefully to see how long it goes before ANY part of it looks wilted. Then water a full inch again that day. Watch to see if it goes a day or two longer before wilting. As the grass matures it should go longer and longer between watering.

Mow at your mower's highest setting.
Related Discussions
Question re: Milorganite & St. Augustine Weed -n- Feed
Q
Comments (1)
If you are watering only once per week, then you have a shot at fixing this. The least harmful non-organic approach (after pulling the weeds) is to spot spray individual weeds with something like weed-b-gone. The idea of sprays is to moisten the leaves (ONLY) with the spray. That way you are doing the least harm to the soil and soil microbes. Crabgrass is easily killed in St Augustine. Crabgrass is very sensitive to salt and St Augustine is nearly impervious to salt. Thus you can dust baking soda onto wet crabgrass and it will die in a day or two. It turns a nice color of black almost immediately. When you wet the crabgrass, use a little detergent in the water or even molasses so the water does not simply ball up and roll off the crabgrass blades. Then dust the baking soda from a sock. That makes a very fine powder that will stick to the leaves. You might try that on the other weeds, too. I never thought of trying it on dollar weed. Two weeks after you use the baking soda, dust some compost onto the area to reinvigorate the soil fungi. Baking soda is very hard on fungi.
...See More
Help with neglected lawn
Q
Comments (3)
Please go ahead and name your community. I grew up in SoCal and have lived all over. Since you called it desert, I'm assuming you are east of Diamond Bar or Corona. It makes a difference where you live because of the soils and micro climates. Don't let anyone talk you into rototilling to prepare for new grass. You can do this small project just fine with hand surface tools only. We all started out with what our dad's told us. Beyond that I took a couple turf classes at Cal Poly. My wife at the time got a full blown ornamental horticulture degree and I helped her study for that. Still, I have learned more at this forum than in all that time before. In fact I had to forget everything I learned from my dad and from school. Here is a summary of what I think I know about lawns after reading here and other forums for 12 years. Watering Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means one inch all at one time. Don't spread it out by watering 1/7-inch every day. That is the opposite of what you want. Infrequently means once per week when the temps are in the 90s, once every other week with temps in the 80s, once every 3 weeks with temps in the 70s, and once a month the rest of the year. Mowing Mulch mow most grasses at the mower's highest setting. Bermuda, centipede, and creeping bentgrass should be mowed at the mower's lowest setting. Other people will fine-tune their mowing height based on the variety of the grass, but you don't need to. Fertilizing You can use chemical fertilizers, but the more people who try the modern organic fertilizers, the more success they seem to have. With chemical fertilizers it is very easy to make a mistake or have problems with Mother Nature. With organics it is really (REALLY) hard to screw up. You can apply double or triple the amount and not have a problem. It can flood the next day and you won't have a problem. And temperature is not a problem. Basically you can't do it wrong. And if you get your fertilizer a the feed store, the cost will be comparable with chemical fertilizers. I would suggest starting with alfalfa pellets (Rabbit Chow) at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. They really work, and no, they do not attract bunnies unless they are literally starving. When I first started at the lawn forum, all the gurus were using chemical fertilizers. Now it seems they are all organic. It really works. If you follow these rules, you should not have a weed problem and will likely have the nicest looking lawn around. Assuming you live where I think you do, the best choices for you are going to be St Augustine or bermuda. You will find a lot of Marathon fescue lawns, but those waste a lot of precious water to keep them looking good. St Aug and bermuda are perfectly adapted to your area. St Aug would be a slam dunk until you get out past Moreno Valley or Redlands. Past there the heat slows down the growth in the summer. Bermuda is a great lawn, but it is a lot more work to keep it green and keep the weeds out. It needs monthly fertilizer and 2-3 times weekly mowing to keep it dense enough that the weeds don't encroach. St Aug grows only from sod while there is bermuda seed available. You can sod any day of the year but bermuda seed will only germinate in the heat of summer.
...See More
Turning Weeds to St. Augustine
Q
Comments (7)
Here's an easy way to apply a weed killer to St Augustine.It does take 3 weeks to see complete kill. It seems to kill just about everything that is not St Aug. I would spot spray as much as practical. For any atrazine product, read all the directions 3 times. You generally have to walk backwards when applying so you don't walk through it. It's a little on the hazardous side, but nothing else works on St Aug. Watch temps, too. You might have to wait until fall to apply. St Aug will spread about 2 inches per week when temps are in the 70s and low 80s. If you have any patience, just let it spread. Mow at the mower's highest setting every week or two. Stretching out the mowing cycle puts more shade on the other plants (weeds) and will help shade them out. Most broadleaf weeds will shade out the St Aug but the St Aug will shade out most grassy weeds. Water deeply once a week in the summer to keep most weeds. Even nutsedge will go away when you do this. More on watering below. Fertilize in May, September, and November if you're using chemical fertilizers. You can fertilize any time with organics like Milorganite, soybean meal, alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow), corn meal, or corn gluten meal. Application rate for these feed type fertilizers is 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can apply as often as your budget allows - seriously. You can apply every week if you want to without any fear of hurting anything. But if you're using Scott's or some other chemical fert, stick to the 3x per year avoiding early spring and summer. 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.
...See More
Bonide Sedge Ender on Saint Augustine
Q
Comments (13)
NICE. I was planning to add a dollop of Microlife fish juice to the mix cuz it has iron & kelp meal, but I can just paint it! Classy. In reality, I'm going to try spectracide weed stop (2,4d, dicamba & mecoprop) diluted to low strength in the tank with a sulfentrazone & prodiamine kicker from Sedge Ender at 1oz per gallon. That a 4-way kill plus preM. Hopefully it doesn't blow up in my face & burn my eyebrows off turning my lips a radioactive neon yellow. I'll start a new thread with results. Stay tuned.
...See More
lou_spicewood_tx
9 years ago
DCHALL,

Here's a picture of my zoysia grass... That looks like OP's grass.
botanicalbill
9 years ago
I was thinking the first one looked like chickweed. I see more broad-leafs than blades.
Use metsulfuron products to get the lawn back to new.

Fertilize the existing grass to get it going again.
glwoodz
9 years ago
I am in Central Florida and have large patches of the same grass as picture #1. It is located on a slope which leads to the drainage ditch in the back yard. I did some research and it appears to be centipede grass. It doesn't bother me much because it is between the yard and a conservation area. Is there any reason that I should be concerned about it? Will it take over the St Augustine if it is healthy?

Any advice would be appreciated.
dchall_san_antonio
9 years ago
glwoodz, centipede does not bulge in the middle of the blade like that in foto #1. If you actually do have centipede, the easiest way to kill it out is to water weekly, mow high, and fertilize at least 3x per year. That is normal care for normal grass. Centipede cannot stand normal care. It thrives on neglect.
glwoodz
9 years ago
Thanks for the response San Antonio. . I'll try to post a picture to confirm, At one time I thought it was some kind of fungus because it turned brown. The patches are thinner than the St Augustine and the ground looks sunken in,it is also kind of spongy to walk on. We had some heavy rains last week and the areas turned green again.I pulled up some of the grass and did an online search and came up with centipede grass. We have just recently fired our lawn service, they kept saying that it was some kind of aquatic weed. I don't have much faith in their assessment.

Weeds in a neglected Saint Augustine Lawn

Comments (7)

lou_spicewood_tx

dchall_san_antonio

Related Discussions

lou_spicewood_tx

botanicalbill

glwoodz

dchall_san_antonio

glwoodz

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US