Where do you live? If you have St Aug and bermuda (wiregrass), you might need to adjust your expectations. Fescue is a cooler season grass and the other two are warm season grasses. Need to know where you live to assess which type of grass would be more favored.

Fescue is a bunch type grass. It grows one plant for each seed that sprouts. Crabgrass is a sod forming grass. It can cover your lawn from one sprouted seed. Some conditions are necessary for crabgrass to sprout and take hold. One is that you have plenty of moisture for the seed to sprout. If the soil gets moisture every day, crabgrass seed loves that. Another condition is that you have bare soil for the germinated seed to get plenty of sunlight. Crabgrass doesn't thrive in the shade. Tall, dense grass will prevent crabgrass. Fescue, as I mentioned, grows only one plant per seed. If your seeds are not close together (lots of seed), you will have a thin turf that invites weeds to move in.

All the warm season sod forming grasses turn brown in the cool season if you stop watering them. Most survive the cool temps with no water but crabgrass does not. It is an annual and must come back from seed every year. However, if you are in a warm enough area, you can often maintain St Augustine green all year long by keeping it watered every week. Really cold winters will send it to dormancy every time, but in the deeper south it can be green all year.

Are you sure you need lime? Do you have a soil test that tells you how much lime to add? Most soils east of the Mississippi need lime and most to the west do not. There are exceptions, so you need a soil test to know for sure.

If St Augustine will grow easily in your area, you can reduce your lawn battles by going with the flow. St Aug when watered weekly and mulch mowed at the highest mower setting, is pretty easy to grow.

dchall - I'm in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The appeal of St Augustine to me is it's ability to crowd out things like crabgrass. It have a couple of areas - one side yard and one area in the back yard that are shady and the crabrass doesn't grow there, of course neither does anything else. I have this year's soil test at the lab and am waiting on the results. It usually tells me to add lime.

If all you get is a thin strand of fescue when you seed, then you aren't seeding properly. This time of year, Tall fescue should only take a week to germinate and within a month should look very "lawn like."

As for crabgrass, you can't apply preventer in early spring and then be surprised you have weeds later on. Depending on the brand, you are only going to get 1-2 months of really effective coverage. After that, you need to reapply. Once you get a nice, thick lawn growing, it will crowd out many of the weeds. Until then, you'll need to treat multiple times during the growing season.

In the deep shade, you'll want to stick with creeping or fine fescues. Don't just grab the "shade mix" from the shelf. Read the white label on the back and make sure the mix isn't mostly tall fescue.

BTW - ST Aug is only marginally hardy in your area. A long cold spell in winter will damage or kill it. Some years, it won't matter at all, but eventually you'll get a year that wipes it out.

Hey there. I am in Va Beach as well and had been fighting the same Fescue battles for many years as well. Two years ago I ordered a truck full of Raleigh SA and did the back and sides of my yard. I am super pleased with the results. It is very thick and in the second year still has no weeds. It does brown for a few months of the year but actually looks killer for more months of the year than my Fescue ever did. In fact it looks it's best when I am wanting to hang out in the yard (April-early Dec) and goes dormant when I tend to hang indoors anyways. If you are interested in pursuing it, I am going to order another truckload next spring to finish off the front yard. I buy it from a sod farmer in SC very inexpensively. Last time I did it I only filled up 1/4 of the truck and invited others to fill up the rest of the truck.

how is SA doing now?