Did alot of reading today - thanks for pointing me in the right direction Linda. I noticed Raybos' 3:2:1 (potting mix/pine bark fines/perlite) mixture seems to be a winning combination. He also recommends using a dupont landscape fabric to prevent the roots from entering the reservoir...but I'm not sure if I'd need this a well with the 5-gal bucket. On the other hand, a guy by the name of engineeredgarden (or EG), suggested a wicking cup with just a small 7/64" hole drilled at the bottom (for 5gal bucket SWC) and mentioned that less expensive growing media (e.g. MG potting mix) could be used as this would throttle back water absorption/retention which seemed to be a problem with the big box potting mixes. Thirdly, there was the 6:3:1 ratio of Sphagnum Peat, Vermiculite & Perlite I saw some recommend. I guess I'll continue to do some more reading to see what works for people in my area.

Thanks for coming back with that information. Centipede grass does well when mowed low, so you are doing that just right. I agree with billhill on watering. We've been preaching 'deep and infrequent' for a couple years and have lots of testimonials as to the effectiveness. You'll have to adjust your watering to your soil, humidity, and grass, but even in Phoenix they can water once a week during the summer. Why water like that? Weed seeds need continual moisture to germinate and sprout. If you water every day, or the seeds do not have a chance to dry out, they will sprout and you get a weedy lawn. If you water deeply, your grass will grow deep roots that can go longer without water. When you have moisture deeper in the soil then you can allow the soil, and seeds, to dry out at the surface. So by watering deeply and infrequently you can avoid weeds and your grass can survive drought better. If you are going to change your watering, now would be a good time to start before summer hits. Since it is early spring, I would start "cold turkey" by watering deeply every other week. If your grass starts to wilt before two weeks is up, water right away but water a little longer next time. Getting back to the original question, I fertilize five times a year on the federal holidays. I picked the holidays because they work for me to keep the grass green all season. I start on Washington's Birthday, then Memorial Day, 4th of July (organic only), Labor Day, and Thanksgiving.

Asking a bunch of lawn wackos whether you should hire somebody to take care of your lawn is probably not going to get a lot of endorsements for the lawn service. I used a lawn service for the first year I owned my house and my thinking was much along the same lines as yours. I'd get a professional service to get rid of the weeds and get my grass healthy and after that, I'd be able to do it on my own. I think they said that they used a specific set of chemicals that they sprayed that was tailored to my lawn and its needs, but the truck that they brought around had a big tank on it and they used the same tank on every lawn. When they would come by, they'd leave a notice on the door with recommendations for how often to cut, water, etc based on the conditions they noted in my lawn. But it was the same every time, regardless of the temperature, rainfall, etc. To top it off, the weed situation was no better than before and may have even gotten worse. I also wasn't really comfortable with the little flags they'd put out telling me to keep children and pets off the lawn for a minimum of X days because of the treatments. So I took matters into my own hands. I read things from the extension offices and started doing things that are pretty close to what gets recommended around here. Things started improving. Then I found various lawncare forums and things got even better. One humorous (or maddening?) thing happened a few years after I stopped using the lawn care service. A sprinkler head broke and a section of the lawn went dormant because it wasn't getting any water (the only water lawns get here is from sprinklers). One of the lawncare services pulled up and told me that I had a serious grub problem and needed to treat it right away. They went out to the area that was dormant and started pulling up sections of grass and telling me that it was due to grubs. I knew it was because of lack of water and suggested that as the cause, and they started launching into an explanation of why they knew that wasn't it. I then turned on the sprinkler in that section and showed them that it wasn't working, but they still tried to tell me it was grubs. Anyway, the main things you want to do are the following: Water deeply and infrequently. Apply an inch of water a week, but only water once a week if you can (in the desert, I often have to water twice a week, or once every 5 days, anyway). Adjust the amount (or the frequency) you water for any rainfall. This has a couple of benefits. First, it promotes deep roots, so the grass can better deal with periods of drought. I call grass a lazy plant, because it will only put down roots as deeply as it needs to for the water it gets. If the top inch of soil is always wet, the grass will have roots that are only an inch deep. Second, letting the ground dry between waterings will discourage weed seeds from germinating, because they need moisture to germinate. Mulch mow and mow at the highest setting of your mower and never cut more than 1/3 of the blade at one time. Mulch mowing returns water and nutrients to the soil and improves the health of the soil. It doesn't contribute to thatch and can actually contribute to getting rid of it. Mowing at the highest setting helps to make the grass stronger because it gives more surface area for photosynthesis. It also helps shade the surface so the roots are better able to deal with heat and drought. Also, it helps keep weeds from thriving because the weeds need sunlight. Fertilize once in the spring and twice in the fall. If you're using weed killers, don't use the weed and feed products (another reason I don't like the services--the one size fits all means they fertilize and kill weeds at the same time). Instead, spot spray weeds that you see sprout up. As for the lime, did they do a soil test? If not, there's no way to know whether lime is needed. Some areas tend to have low pH soils, but you don't know what the prior owner did. The prior owner may have applied lime regularly and heavily and raised the pH too high. If so, I wouldn't do anything to lower the pH because that will happen anyway, but you need to know if it needs lime before adding it. I guess my comment on the grubs is similar. Do you have grubs? If not, the grub treatment makes a lot more sense for the lawn service than it does for you.

Early fall would be better than late fall, you need active soil microbes to break the stuff down and they start to become less active as temps drop. Labor Day weekend would be good, and that's easy to remember every year.