Alabama your yard doesn't look bad at all you don't want to go crazy killing weeds in this heat.be patient hand pick the major ones and don't spray until your yard goes dormant than you can use round up and get a hold on them.then you need to get on pre emergent program.i like stonewall- Prodiamine it's a spring and fall application. Read the Bermuda bible and follow by seasons. I made mistake spraying weeds in the summer before but I guess you live and learn. One more thing do your yard a great service and get a soil test.i see people with high ph and putting down lime.thats a killer. I see people with low phos ,potassium,just putting nitrogen on there yard instead of a balanced fertilzer like 13-13-13. My neighbor had a light green colored yard.one day he ask me what I was putting on my yard.i told him a balanced fertilzer.So I put a one foot square spread of 13 -13 - 13 on his yard and his grass turned bright green and grew great.He listen to me after that and had soil tested low phos,potassium and they told him to use a balanced fertilzer 19-19-19 at 5 lbs per 1000 sq ft.now his whole yard is green and he is a happy camper. Soil test will tell you a lot of good info. Good luck. Tom

Hi dozerboy, let me see if I can help a little. First things first, don't panic, and don't start fertilizing and all just yet. My advice would be to find your local county agent office, or your local university agricultural extension service, which generally have a branch dealing with helping homeowners with their landscape concerns and veggie/fruit growing. If you read a Scott's lawn book, or even talk to a local garden center, in my opinion, they will try to sell you a product or a system, not necessarily out of a malicious intent, but feeling the customer wants a quick fix. I'm not sure exactly where you are and what zone, and your climatic conditions, becoz Texas is a BIG state, but in lots of the south, the grass is winding down now and should not be fertilized. Sometimes it is a good idea to "winterize" your lawn to get it ready for the cold season, and I beleive it helps the roots, but not a fertilizer for top growth. Your county agent will know this and the exact time for you to do this. And when to fertilize next season, and probably several times in the growing part of the season. Actually your lawn doesn't look real bad to me. You sort of have to decide if you are going to do a program of lawn care with these winterizers, fertilizers, and herbicides for weed control, or go organic (which is what I recommend). Visit the other forums like lawn/turf and organic lawn. Don't be in a hurry. As to the oak trees, they are very young and look good to me. The white stuff is probably lichen and is probably not a problem, the little balls are probably galls and probably ok too, the tumbleweed stuff looks like spanish moss to me, not a problem at all, and usually desirable and attractive on oaks in the south, but you could have mistletoe which is not a good thing, a definite parasite. I would again recommend you share the pics with a county agent type person familiar with your area of Texas. You may want to remove the tree rings and just use some mulch, and realize that most lawns will not grow well in shade, as the trees mature. You will most likely need to grow a ground cover or other shade plant under there in years to come, again not something to worry about right now. May I suggest visiting the Renegade Gardener website (just do a search) and he has some funny and helpful landscape tips. Ok, the shrubs look like ligustrum (the large ones), maybe some little hollies or boxwood and liriope (the grassy one). I would just remove the yellowing leaves. I would water when there hasn't been a good rain in a week, I would deep water at the roots. I would watch the drainage, does it drain well or stay wet. I would go organic, adding compost, and keeping it mulched. I am not an horticulturist, botanist, or expert by any means, just a gardener x 26 years. Hope some of this is helpful to you. Laurie in north Mississippi, formerly New Orleans

Thanks for your response Bob. I didn't think of checking with my insurance carrier. When the tree service owner came out to give me a price he thought the tree would be far enough away from the house. Once it's trimmed I might feel better about leaving it. I really don't want to get rid of an oak tree. As it is the woods will be thinned out when they remove the tallows but they have to go before they spread any more. I'll have to discuss the fill questions with them tomorrow.

boxerpups! Wow thanks for all the pictures! I like the idea of gray too. It will work well with our warmth, actually it may tone down some of the warm. OUr cabinets are actually Maple, but they do have an oragnish glow to them that i'd like to tone down! We tried Nomadic Desert and Kilim beige in our home and it was HORRIBLE. Kilim beige looked like silly putty with more pink, and Nomadic Desert looked like really cheap foundation on a girls face.. kinda pinky and too dark. We also tried SW Universal Khaki and it has a gray sheen to it. So far I love it but I think it may have too much green in it; I'm not sure. . I'm going to go to the store tomorrow and get the silver fox! Thanks for the suggestion!