In response to a six year old comment on a very old thread, urine is actually quite sterile. What comes out the other end is not. That's the best thing to wrap your head around. I find that putting urine on my compost pile raises the temperature noticeably. It really does seem to accelerate composting. Urine sure won't do anything about the pH level of the bed, and wood ash is about the worst thing you can do about alkaline soil. My soil is alkaline, and I consider wood ash mildly toxic waste. (Though in very modest quantities, it is fine to put in a compost pile.) Per unit weight, wood ash is about half as effective in increasing alkalinity as lime.

Confused by the pH and calcium. pH of 6.0 but calcium is a little high? High calcium, especially in Texas, usually means pH around 8. Who did your test? St Augustine is very tolerant of off kilter soil conditions, and yours are not that off. The numbers they recommend are less important than the number ratios. Look for one that is heavier on K than N and P. Fertilize with chemical fertilizer after you have mowed for the second time this year. Memorial Day is good. Then fertilize again on Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

Conventional advice is that you do not want to apply more than one pound of nitrogen per thousand sq ft of lawn. Fertilizers are labeled with percentages of NPK that they contain. 20-10-10 means the bag has 20%N (nitrogen), 10% P (phosphorous) and 10% K (potasium). Dropping 5 lbs of product over 1000 sq ft would resultin 1 lb of N and 1/2 lb. ea. of P and K. As the rule is that you do not want to drop more than 1# of N, at a time, you can deduce that the testing facility is advising that you feed 1/2# each of P and K, and 1# of N. Based on the above, you should be able to calculate what rate to drop any given fertilizer to achieve at least one of the NPK nutrients. Many garden stores or nurseries or Lesco stores sell what is called triple NPKs, e.g. 10-10-10, 12-12-12 or 19-19-19 if you can't find exactly 20-10-10. Ignoring enviormental issues and some debateable observations/arguements, adding up to a pound of P and/or K is not going to hurt the grass. Adding more than a pound of N can have adverse consequences. Point is, you can use a triple NPK at a drop rate of 1# of N per thousand sq ft (which would also be dropping 1# of P and K) without harm. or you could drop a tripple at half rate (1/2# of NPK per thousand sq ft.) and make up the other recommended 1/2# of N, by dropping 1/2N using Milorganite (organic), urea or any fertilizer (synthetic) labled X-0-0.

next fall.. after leaf color change on the deciduous trees... if you grab a handful... you will see that a lot of them have spots like this ... fungus/mildews are two of mother natures composters ... mushrooms and all ... etc ... my point was.. it would be pollution.. to try to spray.. dead leaves... so i wanted to clearly focus you on such... going to post any pix of the buds.. or just wait and see ??? personally.. i got rid of all my E's years ago ... due to scale .. and other problems.. yours seems very thin ... i bet they are in heavy shade which they apparently arent enjoying ... you can probably do much better with a new plant.. OF SOMETHING ELSE ... i would have no qualms of killing this thing ... i also see on your last pic.. it has the black spots also in summer ... it might be a mildew.. again caused by too much shade, among other things ... and.. try to avoid adding guesses to titles.. because we tend to focus on them.. and sometimes it leads us astray ... get rid of it.. if you are so inclined ... we can help you choose much better stuff ... often ... decades ago.. things were planted.. and in full sun.. but sooner or later.. the shade trees end up shading the smaller full sun plants below... and you are better off getting rid of them... since not many peeps would cut down a huge shade tree.. for the scrub underneath.. and i will personally come and slap you if you did so.. for a eyuonomys .... lol.. not really.. but you get my point .... take care and good luck ken Here is a link that might be useful: mildew on eyuonomys