What can I do to make my grass grow? (Picture)

8 years ago

First time poster. Came across this forum and saw a lot of good and helpful folks.

I recently moved into a cookie cutter neighborhood in North Texas. Zip 75068. First owner, first summer, and this is what my grass looks like. This is my actual lawn. Some sections grow better than others, but most of the lawn looks like that. At first I thought it might just be thatch, but it looks to be more than that to my untrained, novice eye.

I'm inching closer and closer to just walking up to the neighbors home a few streets down and asking them what they did to get the perfect lawn, but I feel that's a little bit creepy. Every day when I pass their lawn though I get lawn envy. I just want a lush, thick, soft, green lawn like his. I want it to look like this.

Another big thing I would like to fix is for the grass to grow up from the curb a bit. Most sections of my lawn are even with the concrete the grass butts up to and in some sections, the grass is actually lower than the concrete. You can sort of see this in the picture of my lawn, but it's tough to tell. This is what I'd prefer. I don't know if this is something where soil needs to be added slowly over time or if I just need to get the grass growing more healthily first and it will pop up over time.

General lawn information. If I forget something or you need more, let me know.

I don't know exactly what type of grass it is other than some sort of Bermuda. Maybe one of you pros can tell.
I use a Honda Rotary mower. Brand new.
My wife signed us up for Scotts Lawn Service (without me knowing), so they're doing their regular pre-emergent / fertilizing / pest control routine. Don't think I can cancel at this point without losing the money, so I'll probably just keep them through this year, though I can do anything I need to to supplement what they're putting down.
I assume the grass was laid during the summer last year as the house was finished in July/August.

Now, I know it will take some time, it isn't something that's just going to happen overnight (which is hard for me because I'm a "results now" type of person). But what do I need to do starting today to slowly fix these issues?

Thank you all in advance for any advice you can share.

Featured Answer

dchall_san_antonio

8 years ago

Looks like St Augustine to me, but it could be the altitude and sunnyness of the photo. If you could take a picture in the shade with a dime in the picture and taken from an altitude of 3 inches, I could do better.

The bad news is your cookie cutter lawn in Dallas will never look like a colonial estate in Virginia. But you absolutely don't have to have lawn envy. What Scott's will do to your yard will likely not hurt anything. What you do yourself could kill it post haste, and then you could blame it on Scott's.

Our issues with national brand lawn services like Scott's is they don't have your best interest at heart. They have boat payments to make all year, so they will continue to bleed your wallet as long as you let them. Also they don't hire lawn experts. They have a training pamphlet of what to tell clients about their lawn. They are not trained to diagnose the lawns, they are only trained what to say. I know because I worked with one of them after he left the job. His own lawn was dead. Anyway, here's what's involved with caring for St Augustine:

Water deeply and infrequently. I realized Mother Nature has thrown you a huge curve ball on this for 2015, but the rains will eventually stop. When they do you will be watering once per week but water a full inch at a time. Time how long it takes your sprinkler system to fill several cat food or tuna cans place around the yard. Use that time every time you water. Once per week should be all you need for the summer until it cools off. Then go to once every 2 weeks. The soil surface must dry completely between watering.

Mulch mow at your mower's highest setting ALWAYS. Unless this grass is really bermuda, then you will mulch mow at the mower's lowest setting. So it's important to get the grass identified.

Assuming it's St Aug, fertilize now with an organic fertilizer like corn meal, corn gluten meal, alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow), cottonseed meal, or Milorganite. The app rate is 15-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Apply now and again about Labor Day. You can apply on 4th of July if you want to hit all the holidays. And hit it again around Thanksgiving.

That is really all there is to growing grass. The number 1 important thing is deep and infrequent watering. You can mess up any of the rest, but if you get the watering wrong you'll have weeds and other issues that you'll never see if you're doing it right.

Sounds simple, huh! It really is. You won't have to reseed anything and should not need herbicide. There is a slight possibility of insect damage even in a healthy lawn, but those are rare enough. I used to have snails, but once I got rid of those and went organic and learned how to water, I have not had any insect issues.

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lecoopsta
Original Author
8 years ago
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lecoopsta
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks dchall. It's definitely a Bermuda grass, I just don't know if it's a blend or what. The picture is pretty misleading. As far as the horizontal growth goes, will it eventually straighten up?
dchall_san_antonio
8 years ago
Watering advice is the same.

Mowing bermuda: Mulch mow 2x per week at the mower's lowest setting.

Fertilizing bermuda: 1x per MONTH through the growing season with a high N fertilizer. In addition at least once per year I would apply any organic at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet.

Yours is likely the TIF 419 hybrid bermuda. It will definitely straighten out when the clouds lift and the sun comes out. Which also means it will never straighten out in the shade or north side of any solid object. Bermuda needs 8 hours a day of sunlight or it will thin out and let the weeds in.
lecoopsta
Original Author
8 years ago
Phew, my front lawn is on the south side of our house. Here are a couple extra pictures of the lawn. A 3" close up with a dime and a full shot of the lawn.

You can see in the picture of the full front lawn that the part in the bottom right corner is growing better than the rest of the lawn. It's odd. When I mow, nothing gets shorter on any of the lawn except for that green section in the corner. Everything else is unnoticeable.

I'm hoping that eventually it will all start to grow. I really want the grass to grow up over those water access thingamajigs in the lawn as well. I cant even mow over those right now because the lawn is low enough and uneven enough that the blade to the mower would hit the plastic lids if I went over them at all.
dchall_san_antonio
8 years ago
Thanks for the pix and the further explanation.

Taller or greener grass will not raise the soil level around your utility valves. You need to bring in a minimal amount of sand or topsoil to place (carefully) around those utilities. You only need to go out about 20 inches and feather it in. Bring the soil/sand level up to the top of the box and no higher. You don't want soil washing into the box. Then add less and less as you move away until at 20 inches away you're not adding any more. This will give you a slight hump around those spots with minimal impact on your overall drainage.

I think all your lawn needs is sunlight and fertilizer. Since you don't know what Scott's already applied and when they're coming again, I would put down the organic asap and plan to do it routinely until you can get Scott's off your lawn. The organics take 3 weeks to see the improvement, so if you had done it 3 weeks ago, everything would be great. What the bermuda would love is monthly heavy dose of high N fertilizer. Scott's ain't gonna do that for you. If you can let them go, then the monthly feeding is what it needs. For that you can use a chemical fert although some say that alfalfa pellets once a month works for them.
lecoopsta
Original Author
8 years ago
Thank you! I will work on getting that done this weekend (barring we don't get the rain and tornadoes we're supposed to get

) and report back in a few weeks.
lecoopsta
Original Author
8 years ago
Two things for dchall, or anyone else that cares to chime in. A) I canceled Scott's Lawn so I'm on my own now, planning on following the Bermuda Bible from here on out. B) I've been looking around and cannot seem to find any 39-0-0 slow release to save my life. I contacted a couple of JD Landscapes in the area and they mentioned the closest one that had it was 200 miles away. The guy on the phone said they have a 26-0-0 50% slow release and also a 28-3-10. He said I'd be better off with the 28-3-10, but I'm a novice at all of this. Which would I be better off going with? Or is there a product in my local depot that will work better?

Please and thank you!
BoatDrinksq5
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
I wouldn't get to hung up over the numbers.... 39-0-0 with slow release.... is similar to 26-0-0 slow release... Only difference is that it has a little bit more inert or other
ingredients... you just need a bit more of the product to get to the
desired nitrogen level per 1000sq ft.

50% slow release in my KBG Book,is quite a good amount. often it is only 15-30%

Depending on slow/fast release amounts... you can always just put down a tad bit less product, but apply a little more often.

I find a spreadsheet helps clarify which product is most cost effect on a $ per # of nitrogen provided. since size of bags and % of nitrogen differ greatly, sometimes its not as apparent at first glance.

Personally without a soil test (Logan Labs) result saying you need the second two numbers... i would lean closer to a 26-0-0.... or......//maybe//.... something like a 26-0-3

What can I do to make my grass grow? (Picture)

dchall_san_antonio

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