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How can I fix my mostly St. Augustine lawn?

HU-797517356
3 years ago

Hello, I'm new to the group. I live in Los Angeles.

I have a 15' x 20' (size) mostly St. Augustine mixed with other grasses lawn. I had a Chinch Bug problem, but I think I killed all of the bugs (with a recommended pesticide). However I did not water enough during the summer, so my lawn is about ½ damaged due to the Ching Bugs and not watering enough. Roughly from the beginning of the roots to the top of my grass, the grass is about 1 ½ inches tall.

Since I'm too old to work on my yard, I have to rely on my landscaper who cuts and edges my lawn.

Now that it is almost winter, I want to try to repair my lawn, while having my landscaper plant Winter Rye grass seed and cover my lawn with steer manure. So hopefully my lawn will look good in the Spring.

Yet my landscaper recommended and wants to basically charge me $300 to remove all of the damaged grass (due to the Chinch Bugs) and my not watering the lawn enough. However I got a second opinion from another landscaper, he told me just have my landscaper cut my lawn very low, plant the Winter Rye grass seed, cover the seeds with the steer manure, keep the lawn moist until the grass sprouts, then go to watering my lawn every 2 to 3 days, but he also informed me that there is no need to dig out all of the dead spots in my lawn.

I'm out of town at the moment (so I can't take a photo of my lawn), but here are some photos (that are NOT my lawn) that I found online, to give you a basic idea what my lawn looks like with the Chinch Bug damage and from not watering enough.

What do you recommend to maybe fix my yard? I'm on a fixed income, so I don't have a lot of money to spend. As my landscaper's first option for me was wanting to dig up my entire lawn, put in automatic sprinklers, and install Marathon Sod (for several thousand dollars), but there is no way I can afford such an astronomical expensive option like that. I just want my lawn to look nice . . . it does not need to be the best looking lawn on my block.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, and thank you in advance for your help.





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