There is a guy named dchall who is a regular contributor on this forum. He is from the San Antonio area, and he has St. Augustine grass in his lawn. I would think he would be the best source of advice for you on this forum, since he lives in that region and successfully maintains St. Augustine grass. Good luck. I do know this much...when St. Augustine grass is properly maintained, it makes for a very beautiful lawn.

So how about it dc....WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! Lol.

I'm here.

Zone 8 in Texas...you can't be far away. Growing St Aug is very easy once you get the hang of it. There are three elements to it. Watering, mowing, and fertilizing. You did not mention mowing but I suspect you were mowing way too low and that's why your grass died. Otherwise, if your grass was being mowed at the highest setting on the mower, then watering an hour a week, all at once, should have been enough to at least keep it alive.

St Aug will do a good job of filling in the areas that are dead now; however, not good enough fast enough. In the spring (late February) I suggest you get some pieces of St Aug sod to cover the areas where it is dead now. They will be a dollar per piece. Get the Floratam variety if you can find it. If you are in San Antonio, Milburger's nursery carries it. They have Floratam Fridays. Putting the sod down is all you need to do to keep new weeds out. St Aug is amazing like that.

When you put the sod down, walk on every square inch of it to make sure it has good contact with the soil underneath. Roots will not grow through the air to reach the soil below. Also water it 3x per day for 10 minutes each time. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are perfect times to water. Do that for about 2 weeks and then back off. Eventually in the hottest part of summer you should be watering for an hour a week. If you did that last year and did not get good results, then you need to water more. I water for 3-5 hours per week to get 3/8 to 5/8 inch with my oscillating sprinkler. I am in fairly deep shade on shallow, limestone soil. You'll have to adjust for your conditions.

Do not fertilize the new grass until after you have mowed it for the second time. That ensures you are fertilizing actively growing plants and not dormant plants. Mow at the mower's highest setting. You will NEVER have to mow it at any other height. Ever. If you decide to use organic fertilizer, you can apply that in Feb. If you decide to use synthetic fertilizer, you can fertilize in March after the second mowing. Then fertilize again with either one on Memorial Day. If you want to apply fertilizer in the summer, the only choice is organic because the synthetic might burn. Organic will never burn. Do that on July 4th if you do it. Then fertilize again on Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Those are all easy dates to remember.

None of this should impact your tree at all.

Other than that do not use any weed killers or preventives. If you are mowing at the highest setting and watering infrequently, you should never get weeds. The weeds to watch out for are the broadleaf weeds. While St Aug will out compete grassy weeds, it will not out compete broadleaf weeds. Anything that looks like clover needs to be pulled before it gets started.

Thank you so much for the great advice!! I'm actually up in North Texas, in the DFW area. I'd be willing to bet the mower wasn't on its highest setting, too, since we didn't know to change it. We will definitely fix that this spring, as well as the water issue. It's a bit of a challenge because the front lawn faces west and gets full sun from late morning until evening, and you know how the summer afternoon Texas sun can be!

It's good to hear a solution that sounds like it'll really work! Before putting down the sod, should we rake up the dead areas and/or aerate the soil?

Thank you, again, for the great advice!

I live in DFW and here's how my lawn looks following DCH's advice... Like you, my front yard faces west. Lots of sun but it's pretty easy to maintain once you know how to maintain it properly. I water deeply (one inch) only if grass is starting to wilt. I often wait a few more days while they wilt even more before watering again. Depending on the weather, I go 7-21 days before needing to water again. You'd have to figure out how long it takes to put out 1 inch of water. Tuna cans are good way to find out. The biggest problem is the wind... Can't water during the hot day either as the water can evaporate into the air. Best to do it early morning before 10am or early evening after 6pm.

About Floratam.... You probably won't find it anywhere in DFW area mainly because of its "poor" cold tolerance although it doesn't seem to be a problem for me. I actually got Floratam by accident when I ordered Palmetto (it mostly died out to St Augustine Decline virus). The grass you see is Sapphire. You probably won't ever see it either. A grass farm quit growing it for some reason. You can get plugs online if you're interested in trying it. It fills in very quickly so you can plant them 5 feet apart and they will fill in by the end of the year as long as you water and fertilize.

Another advice for the maple tree - always maintain a wide area of mulch like 5 feet circle of 3-4 inches deep. Make sure mulch doesn't touch trunk.

If you like maple trees and want more, check out www.metromaples.com. I have a lot of shantung maples around my house.

{{gwi:121466}}

{{gwi:121467}}

Zone 8 in Dallas? See this is why the zone system makes no sense. It is supposed to be based on winter cold temps.

Anyway, you are a lot drier up there than we are - humiditywise. Keep an eye on it and you'll get the hang of watering. One key thing about St Augustine, though: When it dries out it does not go dormant. It goes straight to dead. It must have some water every 2 weeks in the heat of summer just to survive. It you want it to thrive, then it needs it deeply and weekly. Lou's looks good (your $20 is in the mail ;-0).

You can rake up the dead stuff but aeration is unnecessary. What I would do is to apply corn meal heavily about a month before you put the sod down. In the event your grass died from a fungal disease, the corn meal should help prevent it from coming back. Before I knew what I was doing I lost several pieces of replacement sod to disease in the same place. I put it down and 2 weeks later it was dead. Ordinary corn meal should stop that. For each piece of grass you could put down a quarter cup of corn meal. Normally I fertilize with corn meal at a rate of 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet, so it is not going to hurt anything to use it.

dchall,

zone 8 sounds about right. The range is 10-20*F and I don't recall if Dallas-Ft Worth ever saw below 10*F weather which is not very common. We did get down to low 10s last year. Perhaps 7b for the northern area of DFW. I believe the previous hardiness zone was based on data during 1980s that saw records for cold weather during 1983 and 1989. It's been a while since we saw that kind of winter weather like that. That was super cold weather!

Thank you SO much, dchall and lou!! I'll rake, put down some corn meal, and try either plugs or sod. In a couple of areas, I can see one or two green runners in the midst of the dead grass, so I guess maybe it tried to fill in the dead spots before it got cold. We'll see what spring brings. :) I assume I should plant it sometime around April or May?

I really appreciate you both taking time to give me advice!

With sod you can do it now. If you wait until April you will have weed seeds cropping up. Get the bare soil covered as soon as practical. Plugs leave bare spots. Sod does not.