SA lawn in Texas... looking for revival ideas and help
Comments (11)
r_att11
6 years agoRelated Discussions
Help me revive my lawn.
Comments (10)ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!?- got error message when trying to send and lost my long typed out message! Anyways, in a nutshell, if they are threatening action, you could formally appeal in writing to the HOA Board and cite the current drought conditions we are experiencing here in Austin and in Texas. Maybe they will give a little, especially if your neighbors's lawn are in the same condition. If your lawn is still alive, first thing is to water it deeply on your watering days- in the morning or in the late evening. If alive, you'll notice a difference in a few days. If dead, the lawn has to be replaced. However, with our current water restrictions, you will not be able to water enough to get the new lawn established without getting another violation. So use that to plead your case to the HOA if needed. People in neighborhoods around mine are getting letters right now for the same thing, but they are just standard procedure letters from the contracted deed enforcement company. The HOA president himself has said they are not threatening letters. Maybe this is your case?...See MoreDesperately in need of a lawn revival plan (Northern Indiana)
Comments (28)The idea with cool weather grass is to help them get through the stress of the hot summer, which they do not like. To do this you feed it in the fall and winter before ground freeze, and once again in late spring (around now for fast acting inorganic, early may for organics). It is like an athlete carbing up the day before a competition. You need to eat in advance of the competition, not during. Likewise with your lawn. You don't want to feed it in 90 degree weather and force it to grow when it would just as soon take a nap and save its energy. For that reason I'd say skip anything that releases nitrogen during the hottest months. This might also encourage fungal attack under the right conditions. Just get the cheapest brand (usually Lesco) of high nitrogen, low everything else fertilizer. Sometimes you can find 50-0-0 or 42-0-0, something like that. As long as the first number is a lot bigger than the other two, you're fine. Follow the directions, and consider going organic, at least for part of the year, but that's another discussion....See Morenew owner, revived lawn from the dead, now fungus?
Comments (20)just want to come up with a great watering plan, as i see it makes a huge difference Did I see someone looking for watering help? Here is what I have put together over the years in several lawn care forums. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall. However, there is some recent discussion about summer watering in the transition zone...which is where you live. That was the same link posted by Joe BigBlue at the beginning of the replies. I'm not sure how the Rachio is programmed, but if you are watering every day, something is not right. Here is a picture of morpheuspa's KBG lawn compared to his neighbor's KBG lawns. I've talked at some length with him about the differences between his lawn and the neighbors. While morpheuspa is fanatical about his soil quality, and his lawn has been renovated with an elite variety of KBG, still he attributes the difference in appearance entirely to the difference between their shallow daily watering and his deep infrequent watering....See MoreNeed to Revive Lawn, Kill Weeds, part II
Comments (8)I have started a Google calendar layer for gardening where I mark down the day I apply whatever it is I apply/plant. Then I can look back and not guess how long it's been since something went down. One good reason for that is so you don't jump the gun on hoping for results from organics. It really does take 3 full weeks. Once you see the results, you will be happy. Molasses and other sugars are good food for bacteria (as opposed to fungus). I don't remember your exact situation but if your yard had been baked or dried out for months at a time, then molasses might help kick start the microbes. They all need to be well fed to make the best soil. Here's how they make 50 pounds of dried molasses: they take 10 pounds of wet molasses, pour it onto 40 pounds of chipped corn cobs or rice hulls, and bag it. If you want to save a LOT of money, find a farm and ranch CO-OP, not a feed store, and call them. You might have to join, but probably not. They sell molasses to farmers by the pound. Normally farmers bring a 55-gallon drum to fill, but if you bring your own gallon jug, they will fill that for you. Cost? Whatever the wholesale market price for molasses is. Last time I did that it cost $0.10 per pound. A gallon weighs about 15 pounds so the cost was...$1.50 for a gallon. So the 10 pounds of molasses in dried molasses cost them a dollar, and they sell it for $30 or whatever. Or you can buy liquid in bottles at the feed store for $15. The application rate to start is 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. That is the rate farmers use (1 gallon per acre is the same). The easiest way to apply is to know that 3 ounces is a couple tablespoons. Put a few ounces of water into a jar and put the molasses in. Stir them together in a very small quantity. The molasses will thin out fast with just a little water. This is much, Much easier than trying to stir it into a gallon of water or any other large amount. Thin it out in a small quantity and then pour it into a hose end sprayer with a lot more water. The thinned molasses will mix right in. Figure out what 1,000 square feet looks like on your lawn and spray the entire contents of the hose bottle into that 1,000 square feet. If you put 6 ounces of molasses into the bottle, it should spray just fine to cover 2,000 square feet. I have sucked up undiluted molasses through my sprayer. I had to take the screen filter off the bottom of the down-tube, but it worked fine. It was just harder to clean the bottle afterwards. You will not see any change in anything after 3 weeks of molasses. I have sprayed it at lots of different rates and never saw any change on anything. Still, I can't help but think it is a good thing to do. It just doesn't give the greening effect that alfalfa pellets will. Gray unhealthy soil: Start with molasses, alfalfa, and deep watering. Cover that with a couple inches of mulch or compost if you can't get mulch. Let that sit for a few weeks (3 or more) and the soil should be much different....See More
dchall_san_antonio
6 years agor_att11
6 years agopnw_ff
6 years agoWhile I encourage you to consider the advice you get on this
forum, I suggest you check other sources and choose a plan that works for you,
your lawn and your schedule.Validate the source and confirm if following the recommended
practice produces the desired result. Typically, just following most any plan
will produce improvement. Check the “Houzz Lawn Gallery” thread as an example
and see what results members have achieved and how long it took them to achieve
the results so you can validate credentials.Check the turf grass publications here as an example http://publications.tamu.edu/
I haven’t read them but I would take recommendations from
peer reviewed studies and tests over an internet forum sourced, copy and pasted
answer with no credit or validation given to the claims. They may exist and if
they do I would love to read them.Most any search term will give you additional sources.
“University Turf grass studies”, “Texas St. Augustine lawns, or San Antonio lawn care.
You will get more hits than you need and then you can decide what approach
might work for you.http://amarillo.tamu.edu/files/2010/11/Turfgrass-Management-Web-Version%5E4-16-12.pdf
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/turf/publications/staug.html
My plans have included rototilling, core aerating and
de-thatching and I have more than satisfactory results. I have had specific
reasons and am not recommending for or against any of the options as some on
here do.Attached is an example of my grass just after scarifying, or
de-thatching as some may refer to the practice but I use an attachment that may
be slightly different. I have cool season grass and am not recommending de-thatching, just that there are alternative plans that done for the right reasons produce great results in spite of what is preached here..
dchall_san_antonio
6 years agor_att11
6 years agopnw_ff
6 years agor_att11
6 years agopnw_ff
6 years agodchall_san_antonio
6 years agor_att I think you have some good suggestions so far...including the one to look at alternatives. So I don't feel too bad about the hijack going on right now.
I'm going to give pnw the benefit of the doubt. I think attack is a stronger word than I would use. I think there was an earnest point to suggest looking at alternative points of view. That is not a problem for me. Had pnw spent more time here, he/she might realize that my point of view represented the coalescing of thousands of points of view into what I believe to be an approach that works without breaking into anyone's retirement savings to have a nice lawn. Taking into consideration his/her location in Seattle I will suggest that his situation is completely different from the entire rest of the US. I have had it pointed out to my by others in the PNW that many of my suggestions don't make sense for the area west of the Cascades. I try to walk a careful path when someone from there writes in.
As to the case with my own lawn, I am proud of it. Here again, without any background it appears that 75% of the lawn is weeds. It is. This number is down from 99.9% weeds when I moved in. I take a patient approach with the lawn that has served me very well. I moved in late in the summer of 2014. Here is a pic of the front from that day.
What you see is prairie grasses (i.e. weeds), more common weeds like dallis grass, and bermuda. What you cannot see in that picture is any St Augustine. It is hiding against the house between the faucet and the sidewalk...right behind the pot of dead plant. Here is a picture from 2015, a year later.
The St Augustine has traveled along the sidewalk and filled in out to about 2 feet. If you look hard you can see St Aug runners sticking out many more feet, but that is not filled in by any means. Then in 2016 it looked like this (fuzzy pic).
The St Aug is the yellowish looking grass, which has filled in almost all the way to the pear tree and sago palm. It stretched all the way across the front of the house and is trying to come up into the hotter parts of the yard (where I'm standing). Pic was taken 6 weeks after we had an 11 inch rain event that seemed to have washed all the nutrients out of the soil. The rain happened right when I should have fertilized, but I didn't. Chlorosis often happens down here following heavy rains. Now here is the 2017 look.
The color returned after the winter. We lost some St Aug from severe cold, but it has recovered now. The grass is having trouble moving farther out into the yard where is gets more sun. That's on me for not watering it out there. I don't want to waste water on weeds, but the new grass needs water to move. In any case the St Aug is so dense it is hard to push a mower through. This is characteristic of the Floratam variety.
So while pnw might not be happy with the appearance of my lawn, I am thrilled with it. I love to see St Augustine take over a space. This part of my front yard is only about 30% of the front, but getting bigger every year. For what it's worth, this 30% part of my lawn is nicer than any part of anyone else's lawn on the block. My neighbors do not follow deep and infrequent watering and are struggling. The back yard is also a success story if you count progress toward the goal as success. It is a south facing slope and gets more sun than the front. The front was simply not watered out far enough when we were deep watering.
dchall_san_antonio