Thanks for the follow up. First of all, how do I make sure I receive notifications? I have an option "if you no longer wish to receive notifications" but I'm not getting any. It's hard for me to remember to check every day. The lawn has been a rental for 15 years so its never had proper care. It's a mix of weeds of all sorts with some fescue. I'm targeting to get as much fescue (I think) to grow while I live here the next 3 years. I overseeded with a fescue blend last fall and watered that daily while it was germinating. I haven't really watered since and I am not looking to water too often, if I'm honest. I'm not looking for perfection since this is a rental, just improvement. I fertilized and limed with a mixture from my local lawn care place but I can't remember the quantities. I think the nitrogen was around 17. I also think that I need a lot more lime from what I've read. There is only one spot where water collects on the entire property and I plan on adding some compost to it soon. In that spot is plantain but it is not the same as the crab grass. The crab grass seems to be in the higher heat/less shady areas. Is it advisable to maybe put a Kentucky bluegrass there? Is it not more resistant to direct sunlight? Thanks again so much for the help. I've attached pictures of the alleged crabgrass.

Bermuda Bible, which says that common varieties can be mowed to between 1-1/2 and 2 inches. At those heights, will the same 2-3 times per week frequency be required? No. The rule of thumb for mowing any grass type is to never remove than 1/3 blade length. Many if not most of the Bermuda hybrids and even some of the improved common varieties can be maintained at 1/2 and less with some of the dwarf varieties. If kept that short requires mowing every other day. Bermuda grass very fast, so fast under the right conditions you can dang near see and hear it grow. When kept at say 1.5 inches you would be looking to mow every 5 to 7 days, and under some conditions, wet and warm, every 3 to 4 days. What results from less mowing? Seed heads? Thinning? Correct. Bermuda has a unique characteristic in that it can be trained to do something no other grass can do. Some expert says it is self defense. When kept short and mowed frequently the blades learn to lay low and grow horizontally to avoid the blade. When this happens the grass interweaves into a tight dense mat of carpet. It forms a barrier weeds have difficulty breaching. As the maintenance height is raised allows the grass to grow more vertically, which loosens up the density and opens the canopy so to speak. It begins to thin out which opens up more opportunities for weeds to invade. I don't mind the fertilization schedule. I'll be going the organic route, so I'm thinking soybean meal, CGM, or alfalfa pellets once per month. Any opinions about which one of those will be best for Bermuda? Also, given my organic care leanings, will general good Bermuda practices eventually crowd out the fescue? If you are going to go the organic route for economic-technical reasons I would suggest Milorganite over the feed-grains. Of the three you listed Soy Bean Meal would be #1 choice. CGM is great but very expensive and SBM has about the same protein content. Alfalfa pellets are uselees on Bermuda, as is corn meal. FYI Bermuda is a nitrogen hog, and many if not most of the organic alternatives cannot supply enough nitrogen fast enough to meet the demand early on and may take a season or two to build up the soil microbes to digest the food grains. However Milorganite works pretty much just like commercial fertilizers. IT has slow release nitrogen but not painfully slow and has some iron in it which is welcomed in any lawn. Now with all that said consider this. For the first season to kick start the Bermuda growing use a commercial slow release urea fertilizer for the next 2 months. Then 1 half application commercial urea, and half organic choice.

I'm here. Zone 8 in Texas...you can't be far away. Growing St Aug is very easy once you get the hang of it. There are three elements to it. Watering, mowing, and fertilizing. You did not mention mowing but I suspect you were mowing way too low and that's why your grass died. Otherwise, if your grass was being mowed at the highest setting on the mower, then watering an hour a week, all at once, should have been enough to at least keep it alive. St Aug will do a good job of filling in the areas that are dead now; however, not good enough fast enough. In the spring (late February) I suggest you get some pieces of St Aug sod to cover the areas where it is dead now. They will be a dollar per piece. Get the Floratam variety if you can find it. If you are in San Antonio, Milburger's nursery carries it. They have Floratam Fridays. Putting the sod down is all you need to do to keep new weeds out. St Aug is amazing like that. When you put the sod down, walk on every square inch of it to make sure it has good contact with the soil underneath. Roots will not grow through the air to reach the soil below. Also water it 3x per day for 10 minutes each time. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are perfect times to water. Do that for about 2 weeks and then back off. Eventually in the hottest part of summer you should be watering for an hour a week. If you did that last year and did not get good results, then you need to water more. I water for 3-5 hours per week to get 3/8 to 5/8 inch with my oscillating sprinkler. I am in fairly deep shade on shallow, limestone soil. You'll have to adjust for your conditions. Do not fertilize the new grass until after you have mowed it for the second time. That ensures you are fertilizing actively growing plants and not dormant plants. Mow at the mower's highest setting. You will NEVER have to mow it at any other height. Ever. If you decide to use organic fertilizer, you can apply that in Feb. If you decide to use synthetic fertilizer, you can fertilize in March after the second mowing. Then fertilize again with either one on Memorial Day. If you want to apply fertilizer in the summer, the only choice is organic because the synthetic might burn. Organic will never burn. Do that on July 4th if you do it. Then fertilize again on Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Those are all easy dates to remember. None of this should impact your tree at all. Other than that do not use any weed killers or preventives. If you are mowing at the highest setting and watering infrequently, you should never get weeds. The weeds to watch out for are the broadleaf weeds. While St Aug will out compete grassy weeds, it will not out compete broadleaf weeds. Anything that looks like clover needs to be pulled before it gets started.

Good point about the shade. Can you post a mid day picture taken from, say, across the street, showing how much shade you get? Generally St Augustine will spread about 2 inches per week when the temps are in the 70s if everything is going well. You applied a chemical fertilizer waaaaaay too early even for the Woodlands. I just read Randy Lemmon's website recommendations. At first it sounded fine, but he gets into preventive treatments for disease, which I STRONGLY disagree with. Your soil requires a healthy population of beneficial fungi to be healthy. Treating it for no reason kills off the beneficial fungi and destroys the soil biology. Then looking at the rest of his suggestions it appears he's selling fertilizers just like Trugreen is. He's just not applying it for you. And he's selling far too much. Growing great St Augustine is really easy. Water deeply (1 inch all at one time) but infrequently, mulch mow at the mower's highest setting every 1-2-3 weeks (depending on how fast it's growing, fertilize once in early May (for the Woodlands) and again on Labor Day and Thanksgiving. You do not need to core aerate. As you pointed out it's hard work. You can do a much better job by spraying the lawn with shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet followed by deep watering. Then 3 weeks later you can reapply if you think the soil has not become soft enough. I sprayed mine in 2012 and after a rain like today it's almost too soft to walk on without turning your ankle. If you want to get rid of weeds, wait until April and spot spray the weeds with an atrazine product. Be careful to read the directions 2 times. You should only spray atrazine once a year so make it count. It will kill just about everything except the St Augustine in 3 weeks. The odd thing about spraying it is you have to walk backwards so you don't walk through the stuff you sprayed. Atrazine is not a friendly chemical, hence these warnings. After a decade or so of doing these lawn care forums I'm willing to go out on a limb and proclaim that most people do not water properly. I mentioned deep and infrequent. Deep is 1 inch all at once. Infrequent depends on the temperature. With temps in the 90s you only need to water once a week. Yes, even in the Woodlands. And yes, even in Phoenix. With temps in the 80s deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70 you can water once a month. This is probably the most important part of lawn care. Once you get the water controlled, then the mowing and chemicals (or organics) will work better for you. I have become full organic and have seen some benefits. If you want to continue with full chemical fertilizers, I would suggest at least once a year you apply an organic fertilizer like corn meal or alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). These materials feed the microbes living in the soil and make everything work better. These are quite often all it takes to make poor soil healthy again.