LOLÂ I am not laughing at you, but with you and the story. Being a lawn care pro and sod farmer I have heard this conspiracy theory before, just not aimed at Centiweed. Ok you may have overlooked something very important about Centiweed. It is an extremely niche special purpose grass. It can only thrive in extremely acidic, sandy, infertile poor a$$ soil, that gets lot of rain in warm climates. ItÂs optimum soil PH (acid) range is 4.6 to 5.5. To give you an idea that PH range is one with fumes rising out of the ground and will melt your shoes :>) The soil must be very low or absent of phosphorous. In other words Centipede grows where nothing else can possible grow. If the soil PH is above 5.5 to 7.0, then everything else will out compete with Centipede and take it over, or if the soil is fertile other plants will take it over. As far as what the box stores are telling you, keep in mind these guys are not professionals, and are only giving generic general advice. I know SC around the coastal area in general have sandy acidic soil which is perfect, but not all areas meet the criteria. So relying on what some ole retired fart told is like depending on the Government to take care of you. It is not their job or place to do so. It is your responsibility to investigate, do your own homework, and decide what is best for your application. First step is a soil test and the results will tell you everything you need to know to make a decision. But here is the part I find funny: I think somewhere along the line all the lawn care professionals got together and said "Let's re-label this crappy Centipede as the lazy man's grass, so everyone will buy it and have tons of problems with it so that they will have to keep buying our weed killers, fertilizers, etc. forever! And we'll reserve the good stuff (Bermuda and Zoysia) for the businesses since they are easier to keep up." As a lawn care pro, the last thing I want to sell you is a grass that requires no fertilizer or herbicide to speak of (you would likely kill if you did), and only needs mowed once a month. I would want you to have a grass like Tiff-419 that requires monthly fertilizing, 3 herbicide treatments per year, and mowed twice a week. I can make money off of that.

bopsy, Is your soil clayish or sandy? Or regular soil? Centipede sod does really well over sandy soil. Centipede doesn't go dormant at all, when it dies, it dies. It needs lots of water when it is established, and you just laid your sod in this heat, so water it real good many times a day, if you are using a regular old fashioned sprinkler, you are moving it around in sections all day long I guess. You are not over watering it. Don't let it dry, did you feel that you could easily just pull up the sod? No rooting at all yet? The landscaper is going to blame you if the sod dies, and I'm sorry to tell you it looks like some of it is dying. I have a horrible time with centipede and I live with poor sandy soil, just the soil centipede is meant for. It never rains where I live, so the grass suffers. Good Luck with it, keep watering it til it roots in, whatever is alive. When it does take hold, it is aggresive grass, and will recover nicely, just water it 1 1/2 inches of water per week, more than other grasses, and it will grow nice. I actually had centipede growing up my fence, honest, that is how aggresive it can be. LOL!

We may be talking different plants here: I call Tradescantia fluminensis 'wandering Jew' (on polite days). If we are agreed - then one outrageous thing to do is to decide where you want to dig in the fall - and make a big pile of wandering jew just there. Also any weeds you pull. Make a big, thick, freestyle compost heap. Deal with any bits that try to re-root by putting them on the top of the heap to dry and break down. Where you can, get the roots fully out to discourage regrowth. Please note: if your dogs are very low to the ground (like griffons or dachshunds) they might get contact dermatitis from Tradescantia on paws and tummies. It looks like a water bubble rash. Do not add holly leaves (except right in the middle where they will stay damp and rot down). Buy yourself a solid garden rake. See what's available at garage sales. You can often pick up good gear that way. And, if you can, get a decent garden sieve, for at least partly removing the debris in the soil. (Make sure your tetanus shots are up to date, too.) Plus a wheelbrrow the right size of you. A builder's barrow is generally NOT a good choice unless you want to make a batch of cement by hand for any reason. You might want to consider fencing off the area you want for veggies. Dog paws are deeply attracted to new seedlings and fresh soil for the purpose of hiding cookies and bones for Later. Or taking naps in scrapes. It doesn't have to be flash, to start with, but it does need to gain the respect of the dogs. And it can also be used for vertical growing - peas, beans, tomatoes, melons and similar food crops. If you're allowed to, and it is safe to do so, a pole pruner could be used to take back some of the overhanging branches and allow more light onto your garden. See if you can hire one for now. They can be an expensive luxury if you don't have regular work for one. If you can trust your local tree feller fellers to not sell or gift you with mulch that resprouts fiend trees in your yard, then a couple of cubic yards used as mulch or weed control/soil builder can, over time, help to make your hard soil a lot more workable. Just remember to add a few handfuls of a general fertiliser to the surface of where you'll place it so the soil won't be robbed of nitrogen while the mulch breaks down.

Since you just signed on with Brock, I would give them 2 months to make it look spectacular. If they cannot do it in 2 months, they are not going to do it in 6 months or a year. Your watering approach is perfect as far as you said. The idea is to not water unless the grass needs it. Then water heavily. In FL there are going to be entire years when you don't have to water. Heck, I've had entire years when I only watered a handful of times (2014, 2017, and 2018, for examples). Centipede should grow with 99% neglect. It is jokingly said that you can drag an empty bag of fertilizer over it once every 2 years and you're fine. Hiring someone to fertilize it regularly is, er, a waste of money. The Milorganite should last all season. As for the hard soil, please try this. Use a hose end sprayer, and put 24 ounces of any clear shampoo (based on 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet - 3x8=24). Fill the rest of the spray bottle with water and stir that around trying to not make bubbles. Then spray that as evenly as you can at any dial setting until you run out. Don't worry about getting too much in places. People have tried to overdose with shampoo and they cannot. After the shampoo follow that up with 1/2 to 1 inch of rain...or irrigation. I use generic baby shampoo from Walmart, but some others prefer the fragrance of the apple shampoo at Dollar Tree. This works. In fact golf courses use surfactants similar to shampoo to do the very same thing. Here is my theory about why shampoo works. Shampoo is a surfactant which allows water to penetrate into places it normally would not go. Water will penetrate into the soil and will go down deeper into the soil than it is currently going. The temperature of the deeper soil is lower than surface soil, so the water will help cool things off. The cooler and moister environment is perfect for the soils beneficial fungi to repopulate the soil. These fungi are similar to the bread mold fungi which send out runners called hyphae everywhere. Once the hyphae are established in the soil, they absorb moisture and swell to push the soil particles apart. When the hyphae dry out, they shrink allowing gaps in the soil where air and future moisture can penetrate. This process takes about 3 weeks. After the 3 weeks is up, when it rains you should be able to walk on the grass and notice the soil is so soft it is almost unstable to walk on. Then a few days after the rain, the soil will firm up again. Picture a wet sponge drying out. The soil acts exactly like that. The surface should be soft when moist and firm/hard when dry. But be careful about mistaking a hard surface for dry soil. It is still moist underneath, especially in the FL humidity. If the grass is not wilting, it does not need more water. The roots are getting water from those new, deep zones you opened up with the shampoo. The shampoo approach works a million times better than core aerating, and it only costs you a dollar for the shampoo. ...versus $75 - $250 for the contractor to aerate. If you like the new softness of the soil and want more, use the shampoo again. I shampooed my lawn in San Antonio once in 2012 and it remained soft to walk on until we moved in 2015.