The Floratam variety of St Augustine was developed in Florida and Texas to address the issues of both states. The one fault it has it cold tolerance; however, in actual use it seems to survive as far north as Dallas with little problem. Now if you have several days straight with high temps below 20 degrees, then you might have a problem. I doubt you see that in southern Alabama. They only see it in Dallas once every 10 or 20 years. Floratam loves full sun. I have it in heavy shade under a giant live oak, and it survives, but it is not exactly dominating. I also have it in half day full sun and it is amazing. Floratam was selected for disease resistance. Here is the thing about disease in St Augustine: I can induce a disease in any St Aug by covering it up with something like cardboard or anything that covers it like a blanket. My wife likes to throw garden clippings out onto the grass. If I don't watch her and clean it up, a disease will start after about 3 days. That used to be horrible before I discovered corn meal. I put sod after sod on the same diseased soil and watched the new sod die before it rooted. After corn meal I have not had that problem since. So in order to prevent the disease you have to water it properly (see below) and never let anything blanket it and cut off the fresh air. Watering is important for proper root development, weed control, and disease control. All lawns should be watered in the same way. The mantra is deep and infrequent. Deep means one full inch applied all at one time. Infrequent means allow the soil surface to dry out completely to the point where the grass is almost wilting before you water. When this happens depends on YOUR situation regarding temperature, wind, humidity, soil type, shade, cloudy days, grass type, mowing height, and a few other criteria. But in a practical sense, the advice is not much different between Vermont and Phoenix and Orlando. In general... with temperatures in the 100s or above, water once every 5 days. With temps in the 90s, water once every 7 days. With temps in the 80s, water once every two weeks. With temps in the 70s, water once every 3 weeks. With temps in the 60s and below, water once a month. If you have full shade like I do in San Antonio, I still water once a week in the heat of summer, but I only water 0.3 to 0.5 inches instead of a full inch. If I lived in Las Vegas in the summer, I would water 1.5 inches once very 5 days. Mow St Augustine at your mower's highest setting - always. There is never any reason to lower it for St Aug. Tall grass uses much less water than short grass. Tall grass grows much deeper roots than short grass. Those deep roots will be able to pull water from deeper in the soil structure from that rain that came by 3 weeks ago. In order to demonstrate that tall St Aug needs less water, I am doing an experiment in George West, Texas on the edge of the Texas desert. I have not mowed parts of my lawn since October of 2011. 2011 was a moist year but 2012 and 2013 were both very dry years. There is one area in the shade of an oak and my house which has not been artificially watered once since then, and the grass looks great. I don't recommend you let your grass grow up to 32 inches high, but it can and will survive nicely if you do. In San Antonio I mow St Aug at the highest setting every 2-3 weeks. The last thing I do and have done since 2002 is use only organic fertilizer. I started using corn meal back then and have moved up to a little higher performance with alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). The biggest advantage I see for using these materials is the improvement to the health of the soil. When I was using chemical fertilizers it seemed that sometimes the fertilizer didn't work. Of course with chemical ferts you can't just reapply right away, so the next time I fertilized I applied it heavier. That seemed to work, but I was on a see-saw with the fertilizer. Once I went to organics, it always worked. With organics, if you missed a spot or are not happy with the results, you can reapply right away if you want to and not fear damaging the grass. One of the gurus on another forum experimented with extremely heavy doses of soybean meal and Milorganite. He applied both at a rate of 50 pounds per 1,000 square feet every weekend all through the growing season. Here is a picture of his lawn taken in the summer of 2011. All the other lawns in that picture were the original builder grade Kentucky bluegrass, but his is an improved variety. But if he was not taking proper care, his would look just like theirs. He lives in eastern Pennsylvania and does all the things I suggested above for caring for St Augustine. But he was also overdosing on organic fertilizer. But back to you - St Aug can be fertilized 3x per year with organics. I prefer 5x per year on Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. These dates would work for you, too. I use them because they are easy to remember and I'm always home. St Aug wears fairly well in that it can recover from some trampling. We have a new puppy and he has worn a path in the grass leading to our side yard. I am confident that he'll settle down someday and the grass will return. Bermuda and St Augustine are both good about refilling after wear. Now having given you the sales pitch for St Augustine, bermuda, specifically hybrid bermuda, makes a good lawn, but it is a higher maintenance turf than St Aug. Bermuda needs to be mowed 2x per week and fertilized heavily once a month if you want to to look nice and have minimal weeds. If you prefer low maintenance, then St Aug should be lower maintenance for you. I used to have an annual conference in Mobile and Pensacola and found the St Aug lawns to be beautiful. I did not see a disease problem, although I wasn't looking for that specifically. I realize you are spooked by your father's lawn, but give the corn meal a try and see how that works. You have time to wait for that to clear up. Apply the corn meal now and check back again on the 4th of July. I suspect he'll notice the improvement by then. You should not have to live in fear of a St Aug lawn. I have been there, but since I have discovered the corn meal "trick", I obviously fully embrace it now.

Diane Our local forecasters don't have rain in our forecast either, but they've been known to be wrong once or twice. I've linked the SPC's Convective page so you can see the slight risk area they have circled. Notice how you and I are outside of it but inside the other circled area. The text that explains their reasoning follows, if you want to read it and try to decipher the scientific gobblygook. The area outside the slight risk area also has a chance of something happening, but a fairly low one. For the folks in northern OK, Dr. Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel increased his TorCon rating for northern OK from a 4 to 5 this morning, meaning that he gives northern OK a 50% chance of having a tornado somewhere. He usually picks a city and then the actual 50 percent chance would be within 50 miles of that city, but he didn't name a city this morning...he just said 'northern Oklahoma'. For comparison's sake, he gave northern Oklahoma a TorCon rating of 8 on Monday, and we all know what happened. Diane, I like for the rain to fall in nice even batches too so nothing drowns, but we get whatever we get. This morning, TWC said some parts of the Great Plains could get a month's worth of rain in the next wave of storms that begins tomorrow and lasts several days. They didn't say which parts of the Great Plains though. When I come back inside for lunch, I'll try to find and link their national precip forecast map so we can see what we might be expecting here. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: SPC Convective Map/Text for today

The reason I know so much about it is that the homes in our development (So Cal) have post tensioned slabs. One of our neighbors was adding a second story over his garage and the GC cut a cable while installing a footing. It cost 5G to fix! So when we had our kitchen remodeled and needed a trench for the plumbing for an island, before I even mentioned it to our GC he told me that we needed the x-ray done. It was about $300 and they marked the cable locations with spray paint. They were laid out on 4 foot centers. It took a little extra time because they hand chiseled near the cables, but it didn't prevent us from putting the plumbing in. Most likely you don't have a post tensioned slab. You should be able to find out at your local building department - are you hesitant because you're not permitting the job? If so, your builder must have a copy of the plans, the house isn't that old - they would be specifically shown on the foundation plan if they are there. An x-ray company can definitely distinguish cables, that's their specialty. If you have them, they would almost definitely hit them in digging a 10 foot trench because they criscross the slab at 90 degrees. Sorry to scare you, but if the plumber is asking for a waiver he most likely has encountered them in your area and knows it's expensive to fix if he cuts/damages one.

If the winter is cold enough and long enough, the footings and the slabs could be severely damaged by frost and need to be replaced. A basement slab is usually poured after the roof is on in any season to avoid trapping rainwater and creating a swimming pool. You might get away with omitting the slabs, prematurely backfilling (temporarily bracing the tops of the walls) and piling straw (not hay) bales against the inside of the basement walls. It would be wiser to pour the concrete in cold weather or to pour in the Fall and continue with framing through the winter. A foundation delay in the spring is usually to avoid wet ground conditions or difficulty in excavating frozen ground rather than avoiding cold weather concreting. Cold weather concreting involves the use of chemical accelerators that speed the rate of hydration so the concrete is strong enough in a few days during which time it can be covered and even heated if necessary. That process is quite predictable but what you are contemplating is a roll of the dice.