Are you in Atlanta (zone 8) Or suburbia zone 7b-7a? If the latter you probably won't have the easiest time finding St. Frankenstein but I've seen it before. the problem with warm season grasses here is that they are brown for more of the year then they are green due to being dormant. People get frustrated when they have problems during the 3 or 4 months of dry hot summer with cool season grass yet for some reason they don't complain about having brown dormant warm season grass for 7+. I just came back from columbia, SC which is only 4 hours drive from here and what a difference in climate. It has rained here twice in the last 2 months yet yesterday in SC I got thunderstormed on 8 times in one day. It was like a rain forest. That is the kind of humid coastal plain weather that puts that tropical swamp grasses into high gear and we haven't had that here and we don't normally even get that kind of weather until August. Suffice it to say no matter what you choose, life in the transition zone means lawn challenges.

OK this is pretty simple. Ignore the OM content, it will improve as time goes on if you properly maintain the grass and mulch mow. 2 to 3% is excellent for yards. You will never achieve 4 to 6 % needed for gardens. Bottom line is you need more balanced fertlizer as your NPK levels are low. Is this area sandy or clay? If sandy soil use 15-5-10 at a rate of 6 pounds of product per 1000/ft2 every 30 days, retest soil in fall and look at PK levels again. Ignore nitrogen levels as it will always be low. If heavier clay soil is the problem area use 15-5-10 except half the amount of product of 3 pounds. Restest again in fall.

The only way you can know about your sprinklers is to put out tuna or cat food cans and see how full they get as you water. It takes 8 hours to fill on my yard but only 20 minutes to fill on my neighbor's. Everyone has to do this if they want to know what it means to water 1 inch. There are low flow sprinkler heads. A friend in Phoenix has soil similar to what you described and solved his problem with shampoo (see below) and the low flow heads. These heads are gear driven and send out a small stream of water on a rotator. Of course he waters a lot longer but the same amount of water hits the soil. You definitely don't want runoff. That's just wasting the water. You can try applying 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet of any clear shampoo right before you water. I have used the generic baby shampoo from Wal-mart as well as Alberto Vo5. Both are pretty cheap solution to the water penetration issue. The soap will allow the water to penetrate deeper. Apply it once now, water normally next week, and repeat the shampoo in 2 weeks. Don't use dish soap. Shampoo is used for a reason. When you see runoff, turn off the sprinklers immediately and let the moisture soak in for 20 to 30 minutes. Then try to get the rest of the inch of water into the soil. Palmetto is semi-dwarf. 3 inches should be good. Yes, the grass will all come up to that height. That will really help with the bermuda control. St Augustine works by using its coarser blades to put more shade onto the bermuda grass until the bermuda is completely shaded out. One flaw in this plan is the Palmetto has finer blades (less shade) and it likes being shorter (like bermuda). I've had pretty good success taking my lawn back from bermuda, but I have common St Aug and Floratam. Tall grass getting more fungus? Not that I've noticed. I have a second yard at a house in George West. It is a large yard with Floratam ranging from 12 inches high up to 32 inches and no signs of fungus that I've noticed. Here is a picture. That grass is about 18 inches high.

Texas-Weed- I'm very well aware of Floratam's reputation for weak cold tolerance. I'm just giving some info that I found when I googled it. I thought it was interesting. South of I-10? Really... The farthest North it can be sold is in Conroe which is about 50 miles north of I-10. I should know. I called around looking for places to pick up fresh pieces of Floratam on the way to my mom's house off I-45. When I ordered 6 pallets of Palmetto for my backyard, I noticed after 1 month, I saw a different color in various place and wondered why that is. Not only that, it established pretty quickly (installed during july 2005) and started growing quickly. The stolons were thick and red-purplish which are chacteristics of Floratam so I called Turfgrass america where I got grass from and had someone come over and look at it. He said that the sod farm doesn't grow floratam where palmetto is so it can't be floratam. He said it's Raleigh instead. The problem is that my neighbor down the street has Raleigh and no way they look anywhere alike. If anything Raleigh is more similar to Palmetto. If that was Raleigh, I wouldn't have that kind of winter kill like i did with "Floratam". Floratam also has a reputation for its aggressive lateral spread which I can see that happening right now and filled in nicely. Only Sapphire variety can match that. I'm stumped at the moment whether it's really floratam or genetic mutation of Palmetto, who knows? Del Mar? Overpriced slow-ass st augustine. Only fools will spend that much on this variety. Sure it looks nice but when a disease strike and kills a large portion, its gonna take a while to fill in. Is your Texas Common that good? It seems that from what I've read, it isn't all that great compared to other varieties but what do I know. I'm pretty sure we have that at my mom's in houston along with Del Mar, Raleigh, Palmetto, Sapphire, common bermuda, El Toro Zoysia... Will try and introduce Floratam there. From there on, it's a battle for survival of fittest... The only water they get is rainfall. they are on their own.