Congrats on your worms! Now mulch the heck out around your roses and you'll have more worms there too!

Nice to "meet" you, Jazzlebug. You've got a great sense of humor ~ I giggled all the way through your post. Congrats on your worms, too! It does sound funny to say, doesn't it? Atleast you're not a winter sower ~ they go around saying things like, "Hey! Come check out my jugs!" *Giggle ~ snort ~ guffaw*

Yep, mulch the HELL out of those roses, maybe even add some composted manure to everything, and those worms will increase in number. I use composted poo on everything, liberally. I just added an inch to a few places out front and can hear my worms from here hollering "Wheeeeeee!" as they do the backstroke across the beds.

Another tip for those roses ~ put a clove of garlic below each one, just a few inches from the main trunk, and let it grow. They love that.

Oh ~ and welcome to Texas! Belatedly. :)

Leave it to me to post at night and forget all about it. I'm so sorry! Thanks for the welcomes!

I'll definitely be picking up a few bags of mulch today. It's nice and cool today - perfect for some heavy work. The roses arrived a couple of days ago (already with buds! Wow!) and I think today's the day to get them in the ground. Too funny about the worms, knittlin! What a visual. I've been looking into companion planting and the garlic is definitely in. We use so much stinkin' garlic in our food anyway (DH's is quite the chef and we both wallow in garlic) that it's a perfect fit. Thinking about some other herbs, as well.

Time to get my butt outside! It looks stormy...my favorite! Thanks for the welcome! :)

Ha! Ha! Ha! I appreciate your hilarious post. Being from Michigan, I've certainly been in your shoes. There's nothing like gardening in Texas.

Mulching will definitely help populate earthworms in a hurry. Mowing st augustine at 4 inches does a wonderful job as well because it keeps the ground moist and cool during the summer so worms get around quite a bit. Literally turned concrete ground to black fluffy soil....

Thanks! :)

I have bermuda, but like to keep it around 2-3 inches and love my Texas Tee fertilizer along with worm castings. Those two all over everything living outside have made such a huge difference. Love my husbands electric mulching mower, too. :p

Honestly...I've never seen anyone keep their St. Augustine at anything less than scalped. Maybe that's why I don't like how it looks. My neighbor's yard crew comes once a week in the summer and lordy, they do a killer job with edging - really looks good, but the poor St. A...they keep that short and prickly looking. My neighbor (not the one mentioned above) walked over to me from across his lawn one day in his socks (for advice on his sickly looking lawn, by the way *shines nails on shirt*) and I cringed like he was walking on prickly cactus. I think everyone around here hires the same lawn crew...

Anyway, thanks for the notes and advice! :)

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What properly maintained looked like... Majority of people mow st augustine too low. Bermuda really do best at 1-2 inches because they hate shade and they tend to become leggy at 3 inches toward the end of the summer.

Anyway, tell your neighbor to ask the lawn guys to start mowing at 3 inches. It will make a huge difference. Also deep watering (1 inch) every 7-14 days (in my case 10-14 days if no rain) helps a ton. Frequent light watering absolutely does nothing.

Wow! That's thick! Now that you've posted that picture, I have seen that before. A neighbor about a block away has a beautifully manicured lawn that looks very similar to that. I didn't realize it was St. Augustine because it wasn't yellow like everyone else's around here. His is long and a lush, rich green just like yours. My poor neighbor next door...well, I think someone had given him some poor information that stuck just a little too well (the lawn scalpers, perhaps?), because the lawn was drowning and yellow in spots. I did tell him that though we have different lawn types, he would probably do best watering once a week at most. The sprinkler was on every darn day for quite a while (can't imagine what the water bill was!!! horrors!). Unfortunately, as of recently, he's no longer living there (it was his sister's place) - he took great care of the place and was super nice. I have a sinking feeling that the place is going up for sale soon and that always makes me a bit nervous...

As far as my bermuda goes, I'm just afraid of it looking like astroturf. You know, that super short, hard looking turf? I guess, thinking about it now, I probably couldn't achieve that if I tried because the under layer is nice and cushy - I will certainly give the 1-2 inch level a try. Thanks for the info!

It's been years, but I was looking back over my threads and messages and came across this one. A few years ago, I moved to coastal Louisiana and have a giant lot of St. Augustine now. It was almost all weeds and highly neglected when we moved in, but it's gorgeous now thanks to your advice, Lou!

I ended up moving to Spicewood a few years ago. It's nice living in the hill country with the views but not easy with all the rocks... I inherited bermuda lawn. Go figure... I am slowly converting backyard to st augustine mainly because trees are getting much bigger now. I'm not really allowed to grow it because of HOA rules but they apparently don't really do anything about it since a neighbor installed the whole yard with it last year. I'm trying out coarse bladed zoysia that I plugged in various spots in the front yard and see how it goes. Glad you're enjoying your st augustine lawn!

Lou, I'll always appreciate what you taught me about Floratam St. Augustine and fertilizing with 40 lbs bags of farm stock feed such as soy bean meal, alfalfa, etc.. It's made all the difference in the success of my small lawn. Good to see you on here and hear from you again.