Howdy. Neighbor here from a little further north in Greensboro.

I'll let someone else tackle the organic stuff, it's above my pay grade. I do have a couple of words of wisdom after a few years of caring for cool season grasses in NC.

• You must must must apply pre-emergent in the spring. You have no chance of keeping Crabgrass and Bermuda under control without it. It doesn't impact soil life in any way.
• Mowing high does not to keep Bermuda in check. I know it's repeated a lot, but it does not work because it has such a great advantage in hot weather vs. a cool season grass. Something like St. Augustin, which is also a warm season grass, may have better luck competing in the heat.
• Poa Annua, like all bluegrasses has a very prominent mid-vein, it looks like it's folded down the center. It will also go to seed shortly making it very easy to spot.
• Pulling Bermuda does not work, it actually makes things worse in the summer. Bermuda roots are up to 2 feet deep, you will never pull the whole thing out, and once you pull it and break it it triggers the plant to spread even more.
• Corn meal does not work for brown patch. I know it's repeated a lot, but it does not work. Once brown patch sets in, your only hope is fungicide. Better yet, begin a preventive regimen in May.
• For 4,500 sq ft it only costs $18 for a bag of Bayer Fungus Control at Lowe's which you can spread yourself. No need to pay $100 to have someone apply it.
• If you want to use organic fertilizer, go for it. But Milorganite is 40% fast release N. Avoid using it in late spring/summer because it will make fungus problem worse.
• More than likely, your lawn is going brown due to lack of water not due to fungus in the summer. You will need to irrigate at least 1" of water per week starting in May to keep the grass alive through the summer.
• You can lower your height of cut in the fall. Bermuda is on it's way to dormancy for the season so there's no benefit in trying to shade it at that time.

Mowing high to control bermuda and other grasses works much better when you have a coarse bladed grass like most of the St Augustines and a few of the zoysias. Fine bladed grasses like fescue will not affect bermuda by mowing high. The main reason for mowing fescue high is to develop deeper roots and healthier more drought resistant plants.

You can find puh-LENTY of research on "shampoo" if you know what to look for. Shampoo is our poor man's substitute for Cascade, a common surfactant in the turf industry. Golf courses are especially big users of Cascade (not the dish soap). Because they water extremely shallow and extremely frequently, golf grasses develop a hydrophobic fungus on the top surface of the plants. Cascade breaks the surface tension of the water and allows penetration for a few days. So do your research again looking for "surfactant" and "golf course". You might add hydrophobic as a search term.

Leaf mulching is impossible at the high mower setting. I don't lower mine, but I don't get a lot of leaves. Go for it if it works. Then let it grow back up.

Application rate for corn meal is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can store enough organic fertilizer to last you through the season, but if you overwinter it in the garage you will find a lot of bugs in it the following spring. I still use it, even with the bugs, but it's less fun. I just stir it up.

due to our humid, hot summers) do not fertilize after March 15th. That statement is hilarious. NORTH CAROLINA??? Absolutely priceless. That would make it hard to grow grass south...of North...Carolina. If you fertilize with chemicals before May 1st you run the risk of depleting the plants resources early. This can get you into a see-saw schedule trying to keep up or ahead of the grass's needs. Just wait until late May to fertiilzer, like the millions of lawn owners in more hot and humid areas to your south do. For organics I don't think it matters that much either way.

"Is it permissible," to do so and so in an organic program? As you mention, life is too short. You are clearly doing much more for your soil biology than 95% of lawn owners and are being silently rewarded. After spending 14 years moderating organic lawn care forums, and contributing to non organic forums, I think I have learned some things. One of the things I think I know is that your soil's chemistry is as important as the biology. That means that sometimes you should apply certain chemicals to create a better environment for the biology. Of course I am not referring to toxic chemicals in the sense of herbicides and insecticides; however, if you have a very good soil biology, I believe it can withstand the rare assault from chemical fertilizer, herbicide, insecticide, and fungicide IF these are needed to fix a situation that cannot be fixed with an organic approach. If you can avoid slipping into a pattern of relying on the -icides you are going to be in good shape. My problem with the Integrated Pest Management community is that they are impatient and have a very limited knowledge of what the common organic solutions are for most situations. Consequently they have a hair trigger on their chemical arsenal. But I digress. If you want to apply a preemergent herbicide in the early spring, nobody will be out there marching around your lawn with pickets. If you feel some shame about that, perhaps you could make it up to your microbes by feeding them twice later in May.

I'll admit that I'm not sure what a "spark chart" is but I found this site http://www.msuturfweeds.net/ which has been very helpful to me in identifying both broadleaf and grassy turf weeds. The page goes into a lot of detail, has great images and even a tool where you can select the characteristics you see in a suspected weed, the tool then tries to match your selections by providing possible weed types. Is this similar to what you've been looking for?

I don't worry so much about weeds as I do keeping them mowed down so they don't bloom and throw seeds everywhere. Of course, your neighbors may be no help here!

due to our humid, hot summers) do not fertilize after March 15th. That statement is hilarious. NORTH CAROLINA??? Absolutely priceless. That would make it hard to grow grass south...of North...Carolina. If you fertilize with chemicals before May 1st you run the risk of depleting the plants resources early.

The thing is south of North Carolina people typically grow warm season grasses, NC is on the southern edge of the Transition Zone. Charlotte is in Zone 8, warm season grass territory. I think that at some point, when they update that zone map, zone 8 will move north and encompass more if not most of NC. But I digress.

There's a good reason NCSU recommends not fertilizing after March 15th, and that is fungus. Disease pressure is much much higher here in NC than say NJ. I think it's sound advice for the average homeowner, mid-April we're already in the mid 80s. For the lawn care nut that wants the perfect lawn, I think it would be ok to spoon feed synthetic fertilizer so as to not cause a flush of growth, or to use something like alfalfa pellets. But if you're in that category you'd probably also be doing preventive fungicide at the same time.

Hi everyone, that you for weighing in on my very long post!

j4c11 Not only are there climate differences (NC has coastal, piedmont and mountains) but there are different requirements for warm and cool season turfs. You did a good job of highlighting this point (although I believe you made a typo when you stated, Charlotte is warm season grass territory.) In our area, almost everyone has fescue (cool season). The occasional yard with zoysia (warm season) stays brown for six months. As you know, fescue looks terrible in July and August and then we all have to re-seed in September/October. Going south, it quickly switches over to warm season grasses, just as you stated.

Although I am sure you are correct, I am going to gamble and forgo the pre-emergent at this time because I want to do some spot seeding and plugging in February.

I did try to round up the common bermuda in the beginning but I did not allow enough time to complete the task before reseeding, so then I just started manually removing it. I realize there are still plenty of rhizomes, stolons and seeds laying in wait for me to go on vacation.

dchall Thank you for clarifying several points and for providing me with more accurate search terms. I watch both the NC State and Clemson gardening programs and they are always harping on only following research based practices. I always find your advice to be extremely well-reasoned and you are generous with your time. The university turf sites are not particularly helpful to me because they tend to give a thumbnail description, followed by three pages of chemicals to try. They also do not take risks because they are appealing to the masses. For instance, if they tell Joe Smow to water 1" a week, all at once, Joe will probably blindly leave his sprinkler on, the water will run off the compacted, clay soil and into the storm drain. My next challenge is to get a better understanding of our irrigation system in order to split the watering sessions, so I can jump on the deep and infrequent watering bandwagon. :)

I have always composted and have gone to great lengths to improve the soil for all the other areas of my property. I even have a small vermi-composter. For some reason, I never really thought the front yard turf was "compost worthy". I now think of it as a very challenging intensive garden and I believe I will follow your advice and do more feed stock runs and less leaf bag collections/mulching. I am tiring of my property looking like Sanford and Son's because I am madly processing leaves. Due to your sound advice, the change in the health of the soil has been remarkable, in a period of only five months.

Mike A spark chart is one of those laminated study guides that outlines the basics of a subject, such as chemistry. Thank you for the link to MSU Turf weeds.net. It appears to be a very well organized site with clear photos. I especially appreciate the "Look Alike" tab feature. If there are any grad students reading this, it would be a very worthwhile project to start cataloging all the new and improved fescue varieties, compare them to look-a-like weeds, and then laminate it. :) It seems fescue is undergoing the same explosion of varieties as coleus or heuchera.

Renee You sound very logical and sane :)

In closure, I am still wondering when fescue blooms? We have enjoyed a very warm January (despite what the white house says). There are some cherry trees, forsythia, daffodils and Poa Anna/and or fescue in bloom! Thank you very much for your help.

I think warm season grasses are better suited for the Charlotte area than cool season grasses at this point. With a good choice of cultivar you can probably have a green Bermuda lawn May through November with little to no irrigation and no fungus issues, and ryegrass can be seeded into the Bermuda for the winter. But yes, a lot of people choose cool season grasses like Tall Fescue and treat them like an annual.

A single application of Round-Up will not kill Bermuda, it just goes brown for a while. It will take 3-4 applications during the growing season, which is tough to accomplish because it goes brown for a good amount of time and it's hard to get the 3-4 apps in before the end of the season. Welcome to the lawn wars.

Fescue does not bloom, at least not under normal lawn conditions. It has to get very tall to produce seed heads. If you are seeing seed heads, it's all Poa Annua.

Ahh...Just as I feared. And it looks so uniformly green! So, according to my understanding the Poa Annua starts producing seeds a couple of weeks after sprouting, leaving seeds to regenerate, and then dies out after preventing the fescue to mature? Do you know when it dies? Just wondering if I should pull off the seeds and call it a day or pull out the plant and add to my fescue patching chores.

I did notice that it is thriving in the predominately wetter/lower areas of the yard. We have significant storm water issues here because the infrastructure hasn't kept up with the inner-city super sizing of our houses and impervious areas.

Water used to sit there until I did the shampoo treatment and added compost. Now it is draining much better but I still need to tinker with the irrigation heads.

Poa Annua is a prolific seed producer. Even when mowed low and often it keeps on producing seeds under the height of cut. The whole plant needs to be killed/removed. Mind you, if you have Poa Annua the seed bank is probably well stocked, so even if you remove all of them, you'll still get plenty the next year.

Poa Annua survives until about May in this region. What patches I have thrive in wet areas as well, so it must like a lot of water. Unfortunately, its timing makes it very tough to control. We overseed/seed mid to late September, and Poa typically germinates in October. Pre-emergents require waiting 60 days after seeding to apply, so there's not enough time to apply it before Poa germinates without damaging the "good grass" too. The other option is to RoundUp the Poa and seed in early spring, but again, it means you cannot apply pre-emergent until late May, and then you have Crabgrass and Bermuda to deal with. Also, spring seeded lawns have a very low chance of success due to heat, shallow roots and fungus.

How much do you have? Is it clumps here and there, or is it widespread?

If it is going to leave a bare spot in May, I will go ahead and pull it out. I have a fair amount of sod from edging the beds to fill in. Just need to make sure I don't transplant poa annua! I once transplanted a wild geranium. Thanks again for everyone's help.

Poa might actually be the perfect winter companion to a Bermuda lawn. Germinates about the time Bermuda is done for the season, reseeds itself, and then dies about when Bermuda is ready to take over again. Too bad it's not the best looking grass, especially with all those seedheads.

Blasphemy! Keep that poa annua to yourself

haha o man that tilde I needed that laugh this morning. Turfgrass Identification https://turf.purdue.edu/tool/