Before and After Lawn Here's what my st augustine lawn looks like when properly maintained. Honestly, I never thought i'd have such nice lawn like that on rocky soil. I water every 10-14 days during the growing season. I sometimes get lazy with mowing which is a big plus because you can't really afford to get lazy with bermuda lawn or they brown out at the bottom when they get a little too tall. I actually prefer coarse bladed zoysia like palisades,jamur, or empire but I wasn't sure if it could compete with bermuda so I went with st augustine esp sapphire known for its aggressiveness growth. I think one of my neighbors has Celebration lawn but the homeowner never really cared for it and right now it looks downright terrible. Oh well. It does definitely look different from other bermuda varieties. Celebration has thicker purple stolons with short nodes. The blades seem to be a bit wider. It has interesting color, bluish cast to it.

That is just the issue, down here in South Florida, none of the feed stores have corn meal or corn gluten meal. Only whole corn or cracked corn. Should I just go back to the Lesco every 6 weeks?

Good point about the shade. Can you post a mid day picture taken from, say, across the street, showing how much shade you get? Generally St Augustine will spread about 2 inches per week when the temps are in the 70s if everything is going well. You applied a chemical fertilizer waaaaaay too early even for the Woodlands. I just read Randy Lemmon's website recommendations. At first it sounded fine, but he gets into preventive treatments for disease, which I STRONGLY disagree with. Your soil requires a healthy population of beneficial fungi to be healthy. Treating it for no reason kills off the beneficial fungi and destroys the soil biology. Then looking at the rest of his suggestions it appears he's selling fertilizers just like Trugreen is. He's just not applying it for you. And he's selling far too much. Growing great St Augustine is really easy. Water deeply (1 inch all at one time) but infrequently, mulch mow at the mower's highest setting every 1-2-3 weeks (depending on how fast it's growing, fertilize once in early May (for the Woodlands) and again on Labor Day and Thanksgiving. You do not need to core aerate. As you pointed out it's hard work. You can do a much better job by spraying the lawn with shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet followed by deep watering. Then 3 weeks later you can reapply if you think the soil has not become soft enough. I sprayed mine in 2012 and after a rain like today it's almost too soft to walk on without turning your ankle. If you want to get rid of weeds, wait until April and spot spray the weeds with an atrazine product. Be careful to read the directions 2 times. You should only spray atrazine once a year so make it count. It will kill just about everything except the St Augustine in 3 weeks. The odd thing about spraying it is you have to walk backwards so you don't walk through the stuff you sprayed. Atrazine is not a friendly chemical, hence these warnings. After a decade or so of doing these lawn care forums I'm willing to go out on a limb and proclaim that most people do not water properly. I mentioned deep and infrequent. Deep is 1 inch all at once. Infrequent depends on the temperature. With temps in the 90s you only need to water once a week. Yes, even in the Woodlands. And yes, even in Phoenix. With temps in the 80s deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70 you can water once a month. This is probably the most important part of lawn care. Once you get the water controlled, then the mowing and chemicals (or organics) will work better for you. I have become full organic and have seen some benefits. If you want to continue with full chemical fertilizers, I would suggest at least once a year you apply an organic fertilizer like corn meal or alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). These materials feed the microbes living in the soil and make everything work better. These are quite often all it takes to make poor soil healthy again.

We have been properly watering and mowing at the appropriate height. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall. So I agree if you have been watering every day, then fungus would be number 1 on the list of issues to be concerned about. This time of year in New Orleans you should be watering no more than once a week and possibly less due to the humidity. I think what you're seeing is the after effects of that week long torrential rain about 3 weeks ago. My normal reply would have been to suggest using corn meal to resolve the problem but others have had much better success on this type of disease (rain induced) using chemical approach. I don't have one to recommend. Read the labels to make sure of two things. One is that it is safe for St Augustine and the other is that it can be used at the temperatures in NO.