If it is St Augustine, daily water will lead to disease and dead lawn. 1. does look like crabgrass taken through a lens with Vasoline on it. 2. don't know 3. horse herb. This stuff will take over in St Augustine. 4. if the blade tips are blunt, then St Augustine. If they are pointed, then either zoysia or centipede. Centipede only grows under very bad conditions, so to get that dense it would have to be pretty neglected. If it responds well to fertilizer and water, then it is not centipede. 5. dunno 6. sand and thin St Aug - at least it looks like it from that altitude and focus level. If that is St Augustine or centipede, the herbicide I would suggest is this one. Read the directions carefully. This stuff is not something you want to get on you. You can only apply once a year. If it is too hot now, then wait until it cools off in the fall - read the directions. If you apply the chemical fert that lou suggested, you could go ahead and apply alfalfa pellets at the same time. App rate for YOU, first app of alfalfa, is 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet. That is because your soil has no nuthin in it. Wait 3 weeks and then you could apply at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet thereafter. If you want it to improve at record speed, apply the alfalfa monthly for the rest of the season. Put some cat food or tuna cans out and time how long it takes your sprinkler to fill them. That is your target time for watering. The day you do that test is day 1. Then watch the grass carefully to see how long it goes before ANY part of it looks wilted. Then water a full inch again that day. Watch to see if it goes a day or two longer before wilting. As the grass matures it should go longer and longer between watering. Mow at your mower's highest setting.

Generally blackberries, and other brambles, seem to like the same soil conditions that Camelia and Rhododendrons do so unless you eliminate all the roots from them you will see them forever. The single best method of control is to keep the green above the ground part of the plant cut off so the roots do not get any nutrients and eventually starve and they die. We should not be poisoning our planet with weed killers. http://www.guarding-our-earth.com/aggrand/roundup.htm Compiled by Caroline Cox, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides- (NCAP) Roundup, and related herbicides with glyphosate as an active ingredient, are advertised as products that can "eradicate weeds and unwanted grasses effectively with a high level of environmental safety." However, an independent, accurate evaluation of their health and environmental hazards can draw conclusions very different from those presented in the ads. Consider these facts: 1. Glyphosate can be persistent. In tests conducted by Monsanto, manufacturer of glyphosate-containing herbicides, up to 140 days were required for half of the applied glyphosate to break down or disappear from agricultural soils. At harvest, residues of glyphosate were found in lettuce, carrots, and barley planted one year after glyphosate treatment. 2. Glyphosate can drift. Test conducted by the University of California, Davis, found that glyphosate drifted up to 400 meters (1300 feet) during ground applications and 800 meters 12600 feet) during aerial applications. 3. Glyphosate is acutely toxic to humans. Ingesting about 3/4 of a cup can be lethal. Symptoms include eye and skin irritation, lung congestion, and erosion of the intestinal tract. Between 1984 and 1990 in California, glyphosate was the third most frequently reported cause of illness related to agricultural pesticide use. 4. Glyphosate has shown a wide spectrum of chronic toxicity in laboratory tests. The National Toxicology Program found that chronic feeding of glyphosate caused salivary gland lesions, reduced sperm counts, and a lengthened estrous cycle (how often an individual comes into heat). Other chronic effects found in laboratory tests include an increase in the frequency of lethal mutations in fruit flies, an increase in frequency of pancreas and liver tumors in male rats along with an increase in the frequency of thyroid tumors in females, and cataracts. (ne fruit fly study used Roundup; the other studies used glyphosate.) 5. Roundup contains toxic trade secret ingredients. These include polyethoxylated tallowamines, causing nausea and diarrhea, and isopropylamine, causing chemical pneumonia, laryngitis, headache, and bums. 6. Roundup kills beneficial insects. Tests conducted by The International Organization for Biological Control showed that Roundup caused mortality of live beneficial species: a Thrichgramma, a predatory mite, a lacewing, a ladybug, and a predatory beetle. 7. Glyphosate is hazardous to earthworms, Tests using New Zealand's most common earthworm showed that glyphosate, in amounts as low as 1/20 of standard application rates, reduced its growth and slowed its development. 8. Roundup inhibits mycorrhizal fungi. Canadian studies have shown that as little as 1 part per million of Roundup can reduce the growth or colonization of mycorrhizal fungi. 9. Glyphosate reduces nitrogen fixation. Amounts as small as 2 parts per million have had significant effects, and effects have been measured up to 120 days after treatment. Nitrogen- fixing bacteria shown to be impacted by glyphosate include a species found on soybeans and several species found on clover. 10. Roundup can increase the spread or severity of plant diseases. Treatment with roundup increased the severity of Rhizoctonia root rot in barley, increased the amount and growth of take-all fungus, a wheat disease), and reduced the ability of bean plants to defend themselves against anthracnose.

Find a lawn maintenance company that also provides there own internal weed control and fertilizer service and is licensed by the TDA as a commercial applicator. Commercial applicators are required to carry 100K/100K or 200K combined insurance as a condition to being licensed as a chemical applicator in the state of TX. Being a licensed applicator and not carrying the required insurance carries stiff administrative and/or civil penalties. I find Rick's comments about the state of DFW services to be particularly humorous and short sighted. "....all of the landscape people, are basically immigrant, and if anyone can even speak broken English, you are lucky, much less get someone who actually knows anything about plants." It is this way and this way in many other communities because we don't want undocumented workers in out country unless or course, it is going to be a benefit to my bottom line. Then it is okay. So you want a company like the company I run. Yes, my company is insured beyond the minimum state requirements. I spent over $500.00 dollars to become a licensed irrigator so my company is in compliance with the new 2010 TCEQ regulations when we repair your sprinkler system. I can repair it, modify it and install it. I know how to match precipitation rates in zones, I understand infiltration rates, slope, run times, cycle times and how to program/override the new ET controllers to ensure that your microclimate on the SW corner of your property remains green and lush in mid summer. I am a licensed chemical applicator. Not only can I take care of your turf and landscape at your home, I am also licensed to provide weed and pest control for your pasture and range land if you also own a hobby farm and I am also licensed to provide aquatic weed and pest control on any of your ponds you may have on that hobby farm. I need to attend a minimum of 16hrs of CEUs every year to maintain my professional certification which cost nearly $1000.00 to renew annually. On top of that, I am certified by the National Swimming Pool Foundation as a Certified Pool Operator. Add to that, if you would like me to landscape your area with native TX plants and or adapted plants with low evapotranspiration rates, I'll give you a landscape to die for. I collect and submit my sales tax to Austin on a monthly basis. My employees receive W-2s because they have legit SSNs. Because I collect and submit sales tax, my revenue/income is reported to the IRS. Over 38% of the time I'm working for the government. I offer credit card billing, no charge consults, my trucks are insured and my drivers have real TX driver's licenses. I also can use a computer and answer your emails. Now lets see, you can have that all for $20.00 a week and a couple of burritos every once in a while. In your dreams. The state of the lawn and landscape maintenance in the DFW area is the direct result of the customer and the customer's wallet. The customer has decided this is the standard of service they want. The customer directly supports the market they are complaining about. The customer can't have it both ways. If the customer wants better service; the customer needs to raise their level of expectations both in the service standards and what they are willing to pay for that service. I will now step off of my soap box and stop preaching.

The purpose of this database is to provide easy access information. The links will supply information about the plant, many will also contain pictures. The primary search engine for the links is Monochoria vaginalis ~ heartshape false-pickerel-weed Trudi_d