I would suggest you not use any broadly applied herbicides or pesticides this year. No sense chancing stressing the turf. and at the very least check the label for advisories regarding applying. A half pound/k of NPK every two weeks applied to dry blades and then watered in until mid June will be beneficial for the sod. As far as fertilizing new sod or grass, what follows is the best advice I've ever found: "The Philes Phertilizer Lecture follows: These new KBG lawns are hungry for fertilizer. Very much like, (and if you renovated, exactly like) a sod farm, those guys that start with bare ground, throw some seed around, and by late July of every year, they are selling product: a deeply rooted, dense intertwined dark green carpet of lush (no bare spots) Kentucky Bluegrass. Now how do they do that every year? (And, of course, the implied question "How come you and I can't do it also?") They do it with frequent, rather than heavy, applications of fertilizer. Literally, every two weeks, a light application of fertilizer. At seeding time, they start with an 8-8-8 or a 10-10-10. Upon the grass reaching the 'first mow' stage, they add Milorganite, and then it's Milorganite every two weeks, as the weather gets warmer. Every two weeks would seem to you (and in the old days, to me) as 'excessive'. It's not. Not only is it not excessive, it may well be Required. There's only one difference between the sod farm, with that lush green grass for sale every year, and the typical homeowner here (I'm leaving out the general public: the public is a 2 or a 3, as you know, and you guys and gals are a 6 or a 7. Twice as good. But I'm trying to get y'alls up to a 9, which is where the sod farm is), and that difference is Frequent Applications of Fertilizer. Especially with KBG, more fertilizer than you are used to putting down is good. A typical homeowner would fertilize once in the fall. Not the first year, but every following year, on these newly renovated (or overseeded) KBG lawns, two full applications are required in the fall. Spring? A lot of people don't like to fertilize in the spring. A KBG lawn requires an application of big-first-number fertilizer, in May. A newly renovated KBG lawn requires yet another application in mid June. That lawn needs the nitrogen, for all the growing, both above, below, and across the ground, that it's wanting to do, and will do, if you feed it. Density? It requires nitrogen. Color? Requires more nitrogen. Aggressiveness? You already know what it requires. Even an old KBG lawn, the Merion sods of this world, needed more nitrogen than they received. As proof, drive through the subdivisions of ten or twenty years ago, and look at the lawns: those lawns were not exactly treated like a sod farm, were they? If you want your new lawn to turn out just like that, here's all you have to do: fertilize once in the fall, and once in the spring. That's it. The results are guaranteed. By now, somebody is saying (and should be), "Is it possible to OVER fertilize a lawn?" Yes, it's possible. But not what you'd think. The 'typical' overfertilize stripes that we all seem to fear came from the old drop spreaders, when the rows were overlapped. That overlap caused a doubling of the fertilizer along that narrow, overlapped row, and it was all delivered in one day. What most people forget, while imagining the scorn of neighbors and children, is that those bands of over fertilization did not last until fall, they went away in less than a month. Repeat: the so called over fertilization went away, in less than a month. The homeowner had not created another Love Canal toxic zone, the homeowner had instead managed to put down more than the grass could handle all at once, but in fact the lawn handled it, and probably even needed it. The lawn just didn't need it all at once. Nor in summer's heat. Disaster? No. Bad delivery technique? Yes. It wasn't too much fertilizer, it was too much fertilizer all at once, and there's a difference, isn't there? These days, with the rotary far-flinging spreaders, a more evenly spread application of fertilizer is the norm. Now that we want to emulate the sod farms (and their turf success), we know that there's no sin in putting down a half application, in one direction, and putting down the other half application, in the other direction a week later. Now that we want to emulate the sod farms, we will want to feed the lawn during summer, rather than letting it starve while it battles the hot summer sun. So Milorganite, or other organic fertilizer is required, rather than a big-first number fertilizer. At least once in summer, but if you've renovated, or over seeded, that new KBG needs two applications. It needs the food. So there's my recommendation for the renovators and overseeders: two applications in the fall (not the first year, on the seedlings, they can't use the food yet, as they haven't grown enough yet) at least one application in the spring (two if you renovated or overseeded. That application we skipped last fall goes down the following spring), and you must feed the lawn in the summer: that new KBG needs the food. So here we are, end of August. You know you are going to fertilize in the fall, probably twice, and perhaps didn't do enough during spring or summer. You can do a half application right now, of big first number fertilizer, or a full application of Milorganite. And still do the regular fertilizing when fall gets here. But your lawn likely needs the meal, and if you provide that light meal right now, before fall gets here, I think you'll love the visible results. Good luck with it."

If you have the money, go for it. The alternative is to screen out the debris and leave the native soil. Despite the TV commercials to the contrary, grass doesn't like to grow on concrete, so you should get that cleaned up before trying to grow a lawn. Just a warning though - if you are talking about native rocks, they will "magically" come back over the next several years. Small stones just naturally make their way toward the surface over time.

Hi Frank! I was going to suggest ornamental sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) but I see Sara beat me to it. Hi Sara! I grow four types of ornamental sweet potato in containers. They grow quite well and have been quite heat tolerant and disease/pest-free here for me. The four are: 1) "Marguerite" chartreuse-colored and a rampant grower 2) "Blackie" very dark maroon and also a rampant grower 3) "Pink Frost" aka "Tricolor"--has ivy-shaped leaves in a medium sage-green with marbled soft pink and ivory to white variegation. Not as vigorous a grower as the first two. Will stay much smaller. 4) "Ladyfinger" (or maybe it is "Ladyfingers") New to me this year. This one is from the NC State breeding program. It has lovely green foliage indented to about mid-rib, with wine-purple veins and stems. It doesn't seem to grow quite as fast as #1 and #2 above, but grows faster than #3 above. None of these flower, though, if a flowering plant is what you want. If you have a severe whitefly problem in your area, these may not be the plants you want. In some states they have had problems with sweet potato weevils, but I haven't heard of any such problems in Oklahoma. Other spreading or mounding type plants that might work for you and which are very heat tolerant include: trailing lantana, portulaca grandiflora, short cultivars of gazania daisy, periwinkles, gomphrena, esp. 'Purple Buddy' or 'Strawberry Fields" or even some of the short dwarf zinnia hybrids that stay pretty compact, like 'Dreamland' (gets 10" to 12" tall and spreads about 6" wide) or 'Magellan Mix' (gets 12" to 14" tall and spreads 10" to 12" wide). Some of the newer angelonias are shorter, and blue scaevola spreads out quite a bit. Some of the perennial type verbenas might look nice, like "Homestead Purple", for example. Dwarf pentas look lovely, but are very attractive to caterpillars. Any of these plants can handle full sun as well as the reflected heat from the road and/or driveway, if that is a concern with your mailbox planter. I think petunias are lovely and I have a lot of them myself, but they look pretty shabby by July. The only petunias I've seen do well in the heat are the VIP ones and the 'Laura Bush' ones which I've only seen in Texas, and they are hard to find there, tending to sell out the very first weekend they are in the nurseries. Dawn

Bobbi, I'd like to ask you some questions... What is your watering practice like? How much and how often? How high do you mow? Any mature shade trees? I try to keep things simple. Since your is recently built, the ground is probably messed up from the contruction (compaction, spills, etc), compost may be first thing to do although it is a backbreaking labor to do yourself. The good news is that it should be the only one time application ever. All you have to do is feed the soil microbes with organic fertilizer every few months and in turn they multiply and improve soil for you. I like to use soybean meal because of its value and the amount of protein (nitrogen). Easy to spread with rotary spreader. I get them at local feed store. Just don't tell them what it is for. They will give you funny look. I also like alfalfa pellets that you can use rotary spreader for it. Warning - when you water them down, it will look like thousands of small mammals have pooped on your lawn. So I like to let grass grow tall before it's time to mow then put down alfalfa pellets, water them in to soften them up over night then mow the next day. In order to control weeds, you have to improve the soil, make it richer, making it harder for weeds to thrive. It is usually related to high amount of nitrate in the soil. To reduce the amount of nitrate level, you apply unsulfured molasses (dry or liquid) whenever you put down organic fertilizer. You probably will have to do that for a couple years. After that when the soil has improved, it may not be necessary anymore. You will have to hand pull weeds every once in a while to keep them from producing seeds. What else... mowing high helps a lot. I mow my lawn at 4 inches height during the summer where it's too thick let in sunlight to the ground for weed seed to germinate. You probably will have to mow at 3 inches during winter when the grass growth has slowed down to control weed growth as it is more mild over there in Houston. I do mow my mom's lawn during the winter believe it or not. I don't do that up here in Dallas area. Too cold for weeds to thrive during the winter and my lawn is too thick. See if you can find local worm farm that sells multiple species of worms to put under the mulches (beds and trees) and let them multiple and gradually spread out. Try and get European earthworm, red wriggler and others I don't recall. Watering practice also makes a difference but Houston and Dallas are completely different. Houston tend to get good amount of rainfall most years so there will be times that you'd never have to water. My mom's lawn never gets watered. Just rainfall. Houston lawn - That's what they looked like last winter in Feburary. My mom's looked like it was in May. Anyway, weeds like it when they get frequent watering so try and not water so often. Every 7 to 21 days with deep watering should be sufficient. The easiest way to know is by looking at the grass. If they start to wilt, it's time to put down 1" of water. You said that the contractor put down st augustine sod? My guess they used "Raleigh" variety because it's the cheapest. Not a big fan of it. Not much of drought tolerance, disease resistant, etc. The only good thing about it is SADV resistance. If you get brown patches, etc, rake them out and plug in 'Floratam' variety. Much more hardy. Drought tolerant is comparable to bermuda. SADV resistant as well. Hope this helps.