Just like Morpheus, I'm with Rutgers too. As you can see, Steve, you're apt to receive advice on this forum from both the synthetic community and the organic. It's okay for either to seem daunting to you. The more you read the threads on this forum, the more familiar you'll become and better able to decide for yourself. I do understand if what you can easily find in the stores is what you feel most comfortable with right now. Just be sure to read here and not just the first page. Look through other pages. There is a wealth of information. Ask as many questions as you feel necessary. What I must have missed in the advice given above (SURELY I MISSED IT!!! LOL) are the basics of lawncare that should have been the first thing you were told. Without those, nothing else you do - fertilizer, herbicide, tilling, digging, NOTHING - will matter and won't make much difference at all. If any advice I can offer will mean an ounce of beans, it will be not to worry about the weeds and concentrate on obtaining a healthy lawn. Besides, I seriously doubt patches of crabgrass is what you are seeing right now. There isn't any. It hasn't germinated yet (just beginning to if at all). Therefore, none has grown yet. Thus, there are no patches of crabgrass. If you'd like, you can post pictures of these patches so we here can try to identify the weeds for you. Here are instructions for posting pics. You'll find a good lawncare schedule in this thread. Pay particular attention to the paragraphs on watering and mowing. The first thing you want to do is get a soil sample. Take samples to your nearest Cooperative Extension Office. Call them first so they can instruct you on sampling and submitting. You very likely have Kentucky Bluegrass there in Nebraska but just in case, it is necessary to know what type of grass you have. Your cooperative extension service can also identify the grass type for you. Just ask them. Additionally, they can identify your weeds. There is most likely a small fee for these services. Usually, it isn't much.

Wow! Big difference with the photos! I agree, this forum lacks some features. Your lawn actually looks really nice, and it looks like it took the summer pretty decent other then the couple of dead spots. Those really shouldn't be a big deal to fix. Fertilizer from the seed super store is expensive. For your situation, almost anything will do. You could have the soil tested but it doesn't look worth it. To clarify on the aeration, I would recommend renting an aerator, and running it over the yard 3-4 times before overseeding, especially focusing on the dead areas. Before you do that cut the grass super short at roughly 1"-1.5" and bag it as well (this is part of the overseeding). Let me caution you that those aerators are extremely heavy and awkward. After seeing the larger pictures, don't till the dead patches up, there's enough good grass to save. If you really don't want to do the short mowing and aeration, I think you can probably skip it, and try it without. However, I think you will have best results if you do. You're right about the small lawn! That's smaller then I thought. 10lbs. would be an ample supply to you and your neighbor. :) Honestly, after seeing the larger pictures, every picture I see looks like you have fescue. It's too thick bladed for bluegrass. It is a short cut for fescue. Having it cut taller may help the water problems next year. Your yard looks like it's in pretty good condition. You can make seeding just as complicated or as simple as you please. It doesn't look to me like it needs tons of help to catch back up. If it were me, I would cut it short, aerate (I have an aerator, which makes it easier for me), seed (fescue), fertilize, then water, of course. Should take a morning, or less. Stick with it!

Hi mkbobba. I live in Holly Springs so I can tell you a little bit about brands and where to get them. You're extremely close on being late for pre-emergents. October has been fairly warm with the exception of the last couple of days so that plays in your favor. You really need to put it down now. I have used both dimension and stonewall with similar results. I use Lesco products and they sell a 0-0-7 dimension at home depot and at John Deere Landscapes. JDL also sells stonewall if you want to go that route. There is a JDL off of 64 like you're going to Jordan Lake. It's about 10 minutes from the Beever Creek shopping center. That is also where I get my fertilizer. They'll recommend a 24-0-11 with iron which I have never tried so I don't know how well it works. I used a 32-0-8 with iron and had GREAT success this year. To answer some of your questions, it is too late to fertilize. You'll want to put down a pre-emergent but nothing with nitrogen in it. That is the first number on a bag of fertilizer. You could probably put down an organic if you like. You could use milorganite or put down alfalfa pellets or cracked corn. I like to use one of the latter 2 at this time of year and again in the spring when the grass is about to come out of dormancy. I wouldn't overseed. Once your bermuda gets growing, it will fill in. Don't waste your time. I'm not a soil expert so I couldn't tell you anything about what sort of lime to apply. I've never applied it and I've never taken a soil test. Below are some pictures of my yard from this summer. Let me know if you have any questions about where to get what.

Yeah, I can already hear the excuse coming because if I didn't know what happened, I would have pronounced it dormant. due to the location and visual from a distance. Unfortunately, proving that will be almost impossible. Most herbicides can and will burn the lawn if the temperature is above 80-85 when applied and in sunlight (and blanket spraying is not recommended at any time unless the problem is also very wide-spread). You know that now...they should have known that, but, as Sherry noted, they had a timeline and probably a boat payment to make. Spot spraying herbicides later in the evening can be OK if you know your lawn is up to it. But that's only true on established lawns, is very herbicide-dependent, and not something I'd do over a wider area. I did it on my own a few days ago in two tiny areas of less than a square foot to remove a piece of nutsedge and a tiny bit of creeping Charlie that had gotten started in a dormant bit, but I was very careful not to overspray and I was using an herbicide that's not particularly known to cause damage even in heat. The good news. Some of that is going to recover because it's top burn. The blade and crown burned, but from the before shot, the grass very clearly has lots and lots of carbohydrates stored in the roots to use to regrow the crown and blade. That does take a lot of energy, and some time, but keep that watered and it should work. The bad news: These idiots managed to hit this at, quite literally, the worst possible moment on the calendar when carbohydrate reserves in the roots are at their lowest point, so some of it is NOT going to recover. I can't see the grass type at this distance (and I'm pretty visually disabled so have trouble with plant ID even up close sometimes unless the color stands out), but hopefully at least some of it is Kentucky bluegrass. Bluegrass spreads when well-fed, so your Labor Day feeding will encourage that to fill right back in. First, fire them. Or restrict their care to mowing it if they do that. Taking over your own care is very easy if they won't do it right. Second, water. Keep the soil damp to moist for a week or so in the burned area to see where you are, if rainfall doesn't do it. Just moist, not wet or soaked or squishy or puddled or... This is the one case where I'm actually going to recommend shorter, frequent watering. Thirty minutes, every other day? If it works to keep it damp, sure. But just for a week--we do not want to set off a fungal infection in that yet and the lawn is stressed. Cut it off dead after that and resume weekly watering unless... Third, seed. If you're really not seeing recovery when you spread the dead stuff and look down, you might want to reseed. Normally I'd give it longer, but you're on the clock here, and Labor Day is really the outside acceptable date for reseeding (you could re-sod that area much later, however--out to about September 20th or so). If it comes down to that, get back to us. There's a whole rigmarole for that. And for general lawn care if you choose to do it yourself--it's pretty easy--or just dictate what they're going to do in the future (which they usually will disobey because...hey--boat payment). Watering: Weekly, deeply, if rainfall isn't doing it, a full inch at a time in most soils, but there are some exceptions, a very few. That's the general rule, although during very hot periods, you can certainly nudge that down to every 5 days or so and I won't argue. (How do I do it personally? I don't water. My bluegrass lawn is allowed to go dormant and return when rainfall returns, but it's fully mature and healthy enough that this is not a problem). Feeding: Four times yearly (three can be acceptable). Memorial Day, Labor Day, October first, and when the last mow of the year is done, give or take some. The first three can be organic or synthetic, the last has to be synthetic. Either one of the last two is optional as long as the other is done, so a very cold year may end in October, or a year where you're not sure may end with delaying October's feeding but doing the shutdown feeding later in October or early November. For Maryland (and up here in PA), both can almost always get done as even December features green grass these last three decades. Weed and Feed: Never. It does neither job well as the appropriate weeding time is not the correct feeding time. Spot spray weeds, if any, as they appear. Try not to apply synthetic feeding to a damp lawn as it can burn the lawn--which is how Weed and Feed is supposed to be applied. Really, once established and healthy, lawns are mostly butt work. You sit and look at it because it mostly does its own thing. Those two weeds are the only two I've sprayed all summer, and they're only there because the lawn is partially dormant and rains just resumed. If I'd ignored them, the sedge would have grown, but the Charlie would get choked out.