Dchall_san_antonio wrote: > One more think you can do with fescue in the summer is to stop mowing for several weeks. That will really drive the bermuda crazy but the grass will use much less water when it is 9 inches long and flowing in the breeze. You know, I like having fescue and bluegrass that is tall, like the 9-plus inches you suggested above to Mirz2000. Most of my lawn is zoysia but I also keep an area devoted to fescue and bluegrass. I recall in a different, older thread you mentioned you are growing some of your grass at your new home extra super tall. Once a cool season grass reaches 9 inches and taller, though, how do you cut it with a mower without cutting into the stems? The stems grow higher as the blades also grow higher, so you won't just be cutting blade, but also stem. At least that's what I found when I allowed my fescue and Kentucky bluegrass to grow extra tall. Even on the walk-behind mower's highest wheel setting, I was cutting into the stems. Of course, the books recommend cutting fescue and bluegrass to a height of 3 to 4 inches, and not removing more than a third at a time.

DCHall from last August: The reason soils don't drain is the normal fungal colonies are missing. They are missing because 1) they have had their air cut off, 2) a fungicide has killed them off, or 3) simple drought with absolutely no water. Just so we know what we're talking about, picture a loaf of week-old bread. Anyone who has ever watched a loaf of bread go bad knows that the fungus (mold is a fungus) can entirely take over the bread in 3 days. And, I might add, most bread has preservatives which are supposed to prevent the mold from growing. So even in the face of preservatives (edible fungicides), you can get tremendously fast spreading of a fungus. You can do the same thing in your soil, so you don't have to wait months or worry about the rainy season (which starts just after the Rose Bowl game and ends on Valentine's Day in SoCal). The way you get them back is to apply compost, which you have already done, and water. The water has to be a trickle water or you will flood the area and cut off the air, which worsens the situation. As bpgreen said, take a soaker hose and stretch it out along the high side of your lawn. Turn the faucet to a trickle and let the soaker run 24/7 for a full week. At the end of the week the soaker should have only spread out 18 inches or so. Then move the soaker 18 inches (to the edge of the wet spot) and continue watering. This overlap is good to have. Keep moving on a weekly basis until you finish - then start all over again at the top. You will have to continue watering on your NORMAL WEEKLY schedule while all this soaking is going on. Continue this for three entire cycles covering your entire lawn. If you have a big lawn this could take until the Rose Bowl, but if you really do live in LA, you don't have enough yard for that. What this process does is provide the perfect moisture environment for the beneficial fungi. An additional load of those fungi came in with your compost - which is the whole purpose of compost IMHO. It is those beneficial fungal microbes that loosen the soil and allow moisture to penetrate. So to continue with the corollary thought, again in my opinion, you can core or spike aerate all you want but nothing beats bazillions of fungal strands growing for hundreds of miles in the top few inches of your soil. NEVER TILL TURF. I don't care what you think you need to do or what someone told you, if you till you will have a bumpy lawn until you can get it fixed. Just save yourself the hassle and leave flat enough alone. You don't need tons of amendments. If you want to work a 3-week wonder on your soil, find a feed store and get a 50-pound bag of cheap animal feed. I like whole ground corn meal for a lot of reasons, but if you can get rabbit food (alfalfa pellets), or even cheap dog food, these protein sources are exactly what your soil needs to improve its health. Adding water does nothing to feed the microbes. They need protein just like all other creatures. Then they feed each other from their waste materials and dead bodies. Apply the grain at a rate of 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet and give it 21 days for the improvement to show up. Assuming you have used no fungicides recently, your grass should green up and start to recover. One thing you need to know about is the wildlife. If you apply, say, dog food, to your lawn, you will not attract rats, dogs, or squirrels. You will attract birds, toads, and lizards, which are all extremely beneficial to your garden. Pelletized animal feeds need to be moistened immediately when you apply so they can melt. You don't need to flood them, just dampen them. Then when the birds come in, they will try to pick up the stuff and it will sort of moosh out in their beak. But while they are there they will find insects in your lawn to eat, so it really is a good thing to have birds come visit. And the same goes for toads and lizards. Just don't use insecticide and the birds, toads and lizards will control the insects very nicely for you. On watering: weekly watering is the goal. You should be able to apply enough water all at once to go a full 7 days without watering again. There are lots of reasons for this but we'd really be here all night. If you see your grass drying out before the 7 days are up, then water longer next time. I water each zone for 1-3 hours depending on the weather, and my zones overlap by 50%. On mowing: Mulch mow at the mower's highest setting. Again, lots of reasons, just do it (unless you are trying to grow bermuda, in which case write back and we'll help you with that). If you want to learn more about these techniques, read more of the messages here on this forum.

I'm pretty sure I replied to this on another forum. If not I'll be back.

Spotty higher pH can happen if you got the soil off of one particular section of the pile...that happened to contain the old B horizon with some limestone in it! In my case, I got the old subsoil on my lot, so it just kind of stank all around. * You said you targeted our phosphorus level higher than your own lawn. Is this due to the pH difference or something else? Is phosphorus bound in the soil at higher pH's, and is our pH (7.1 - 7.3) high enough to cause that? pH. If you look at the availability of P by pH, it drops as pH rises above seven. You're not that far over, the binding isn't extreme, so I just boosted the numbers a little bit. Your standard is around 220, most people with slightly acidic pH would be around 200. In your case, I wouldn't blink at anything between 200 and 300. I never use my own soil as a standard, per se, for anybody else's. Mine have given in to some experimental stuff, plus I've over-enhanced the gardens to match the (extreme) density and (extraordinarily high) performance I demand they support. My current P levels in the garden push 1,000. * What kind of quality issues can we expect from the low phosphorus level until it's corrected? Thin, weak, sparse growth that gets sick and dies easily, discolors easily, grows poorly, and generally doesn't look at all good. Installed sod would tend to thin out and die back over the course of a year or so if it isn't corrected, resulting in a lot of thin patches and blank areas. N, P, and K are the big three and absolutely have to be there in the correct proportions (N we take care of on an as-needed basis). * It sounds like the Milorganite is great stuff, but I'm very sensitive to odors, so I don't think it's a good fit for our lawn. If we used ferrous sulfate instead (being careful to sweep it off the concrete), what rate and frequency would you recommend? I assume we don't need to worry about lowering the soil pH too much with the ferrous sulfate since the starting pH is above 7.0. I'd be comfortable with ferrous sulfate (monohydrate or pentahydrate, it doesn't matter) at 3 pounds per thousand square feet in April, early October, and perhaps early November if the weather's holding. Keep an eye on the pH in this case, though, as iron sulfate is about an eighth as acidifying as pure elemental sulfur and does NOT require digging in to work! Never use iron during hotter months or when the soil's going to freeze solid for winter within two or three weeks of use.