Did you find out what was wrong with your lawn?

Looks like brown patch.

This was last fall. It was brown patch and I added Nitro Phos Eagle Turf Fungicide. It went away.

This Spring I've been religiously following my fertilization schedule and have changed sprinkler nozzles, and raised them higher. My grass is a really rich dark green thick lawn.

Thank you for the update!

I don't know how everyone missed this one, but we did. Where do you live and what kind of grass do you have?

Houston, St. Augustine

Your lawn is looking great. What schedule are you following? The fact that you used Nitro Phos makes me think you are a Lemmon devotee. I've never tried his schedule or seen pictures of results so just wondering.

Nitro phos makes some nice product & I think their factory is somewhere around Houston. I use their imperial turf fertilizer every year for spring green-up. I like to support local businesses as much as possible.

I tried the Imperial fertilizer this year for green up too. And I use their Rose Food. Lemmon recommends Nitro Phos a lot (one of his sponsors) so just wondering if he follows Randy's schedule. I've never tried his schedule, so just wondered if that is what worked so well for him.

I've seen that schedule, it works for St. Aug which is most of Houston. For Bermuda, I'd just pull the fungicide & add an organic in its place

I definitely follow Randy Lemmon's advice. I've actually started to get greying, yellowing probably from all the 100+ degree weather. Just in the last week, we have had a lot of rain though, which may help.

And for some reason whenever we mow it's been almost like scalping it or showing more yellowing/thinning even before the rain started. It's a Honda HRC 216 commercial lawn mower set at the highest level at 4" for both the front and back tires. The back two tires are bald though, so I'm not sure if that is the cause or what.

I think I'm getting weeds which look like grass on the side of my house. Any thoughts on combatting the weeds and yellowish bare spots in other spots? Rake it up and wait till the winterizer/pre emergent herbicide? Manually pull the grass like weeds? Any, and all help is much appreciated? Should I use Nitro This super turf now even though it's not on Randy's schedule for the rest of the year? I did it last in June as well.

Also, what do you recommend to find the green lichens on oak/pine tree bark?

I've attached two sets of schedules, one fr Nitro Phos and one from Randy Lemmon, as well as pics of my lawn.

Thanks

Go back to ace & get bonide Sedge Ender, it works on 95% of our Houston weeds. Only the occasional broadleaf weed will get past it & those are easy to pull

cut & paste from another thread this morning:

"Quinclorac kill crabgrass. It's the active ingredient in Drive XLR8, you can use any brand and it will work.

Some people (reeljake) uses Sulfosulfuron (Sedge Ender) and it works fine as well. People have have pretty good results keep most weeds out of their bermuda with Celsius and Sulfosulfuron. Plus there is no issues related to applying in hotter temps.

Reeljake also uses Dimension with active ingredient dithiopyr as his pre-emergent, I use Prodiamine. With either you want year round coverage to keep ALL WEEDS from germinating. You will need to start your PreM asap to keep winter weeds at bay, then again in Spring for Spring/Summer weeds.

1. PreM: Prodiamine or Dimension
2. Crabgrass: Quinclorac or Sulfosulfuron
3. General weeds (post-emergent): Celsius - 2,4-D will work also but turns grass yellow

If you get the correct products, it won't matter what the weed is, it either will never germinate in your yard, thanks to the PreM, or will die when sprayed with the post-emergent."

It works on pretty much everything I get in my yard & does have prodiamine preM already in it. My usual suspects are Nutsedge, Crabgrass, prostrate spurge & kyllinga. I'm up NW in cypress

Depends on the sprayer, dies it have an adjustment on top? If so, then it doesn't need to be pre diluted. No big deal that you added water though, Sedge Ender is effective even at half dose in my experience--It's strong stuff.

I bought a Chapin hose end sprayer and I was very unhappy with its performance. It stops drawing liquid from the bottle at random - you keep spraying and soon realize you still have the same amount of liquid in the bottle that you had half the yard ago. Seems like they are very unpredictable. My best sprayer is an empty bottle of Bayer Fungus Control. I must have reused that thing about 20 times, works flawlessly and puts out a nice even spray.

The ortho dial-n-spray is the hose end flag bearer--Adjustable, cheap, bulletproof & found at any big box store. I use that occasionally for surfactant or liquid fish fertilizer, but my 2 gallon pump sprayer from Ace gets used more often. I keep one for liquid fertilizer & one for herbicides, with clear labels to avoid a mix up.

I'm not a sprinkler handyman so I can't answer that check valve thing, but I use Allied sprinkler & repair whenever I have irrigation issues. The Rockwell's have always done great work for me & they stand behind it, which is rare these days. Local Houston owned biz.

@see3po: What exactly are you trying to do with the check valves?

Sorry missed the question about the check valves. What sprinkler do you have? Rainbird has built in check valves in a full line of sprinkler bodies. Your yard looks pretty flat, there should not be much of anything flowing from your sprinklers unless they are broken - there is some backflow to prevent it from clogging with dirt. The sprinkler body/insert I saw in one of your pictures can be replaces for $3 at HD. You will most likely have to place it with the same brand because the leak may be due to bad springs or seals also.