Help me come up with a game plan

[whitehurst]

Greetings all. New homeowner here. New member here. I bought my house back in Nov 2013 and along came with it a nice big back yard. I live in New Orleans to give you an idea on the weather. To start, when I moved in, I had spots in the backyard of what appears to be dead grass. I went out and bought some Scotts fertilizer. It didn't seem to do much. I then attempted to water the lawn a few (2) times a day. Early morning, and late afternoon. For about 20 minutes each time. This was only when we didnt have rain for a few days at a time. Next I bought some grass seeds, nada.

As you can tell, I know nothing about lawn care here. My local Lowe's wasn't of much help. They advised me to purchase some new sod. Certainly i can do this without having to replace all the dead spots I would think. What appears to be happening to my St.Aug is spots start to turn light green and then eventually die off. Then I am left with this crunchy dead grass. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. If anyone can identify whats happening and give me some advice it would be GREATLY appreciated!!

-Will

[whitehurst]

Few more...

[Begotten]

that looks like a disease. if it is a case of take-all root rot, you might be able to treat it by spreading a layer of peat moss.

[ECUPirate]

I agree with Begotten; it looks like a disease. It looks like you may have what's called St. Augustine decline. There aren't any chemical controls for SAD and recommendations are to plug SAD resistant varieties of SA into the diseased sections.

[KB in MD (21740)]

also my help to narrow down the location.
nvm. I fail at reading thoroughly sometimes

[ECUPirate]

also my help to narrow down the location

New Orleans

[HoosierLawnGnome]

Ok. Couple suggestions - and I'm not a warm season grass guru.....

Watering twice a day is way too frequent. The saying here is deep and infrequent. An inch a week all at one. Adjust from there for your soil and conditions. Shallow roots get fried out quickly and can result in dead grass like what we see in your pics.

The other suggestion is to get a soil test from Logan labs ($25) per instructions at the top of our soil forum. This way you know what the soil needs and aren't guessing. Did your soil need that starter? We don't know. Typically the suggestion is to get one early spring for the whole year plan.


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[Sixohh]

the fact that you are posting here puts you in the right direction. this will be a lengthy battle.

Soil test ASAP. post the results in the soil section and the guru's will brake it down for you.

there is a good video on you tube on setting several tuna cans on your yard before watering to determine how long it takes with your sprinkler to get 1" of water down.

forget scotts products. just consider it a marketing ploy. learn about organic fertilizers and get some laid down as soon as your soil sample tells you what you need.


wouldn't you guys recommend he start raking up all that dead material/ thatch immediately?

[andy10917]

Whitehurst, please go to the User Control Panel at the top of the page and change your Profile location to permanently show it with each posting. Otherwise, everyone has to read this post to know that information when you post to any other threads.

[whitehurst]

ah my poor lawn! I'll get on the soil sample stat!! Thanks for all the input here guys! When I get home from work I also plan on looking for some chinch bugs.. been doing some reading. I'll report once the sample and bug check are done.

Thanks again!

[gtnike]

the fact that you are posting here puts you in the right direction. this will be a lengthy battle.

Soil test ASAP. post the results in the soil section and the guru's will brake it down for you.

there is a good video on you tube on setting several tuna cans on your yard before watering to determine how long it takes with your sprinkler to get 1" of water down.

forget scotts products. just consider it a marketing ploy. learn about organic fertilizers and get some laid down as soon as your soil sample tells you what you need.


wouldn't you guys recommend he start raking up all that dead material/ thatch immediately?

I personally don't use Scotts only because they are more expensive (advertising costs). But I wouldn't say scotts is "bad." It is still fertilizer after all. And I'm not sure about SA and organics. Perhaps once it is established organics might be a good route to try, but I think it is going to take some synthetics to get this rolling again. I really don't know when it comes to SA, I know organics are good with zoysia but then with bermuda you really need synthetics.

As far as raking up the dead stuff, I don't rake up my dead leaves. People usually say clippings and such cause thatch but I read somewhere awhile back that thatch is caused more by excessive growth due to over fertilizing.

One question I have - what height do you mow at? I think SA likes to be cut high, and cutting it low could be a part of your problem.

[whitehurst]

height? hmm.. i have a Toro lawnmower.. and I recall it being on the second to last knotch.. from the bottom that is.

I just read where they recommend the height to be 3" for SA. I will adjust my mower accordingly. Thanks for the tip!

[BoatDrinksQ5]

Well - if almost on the lowest setting. That would be considered 'low' - first step would be to see what the recommended StAug height is.

edit: you found it...3". Look all over - recommendations on a lot of sites are all over the place (at least for KBG). Try to come to some conclusions based on what each site is saying (including ATY posts).

[Begotten]

height? hmm.. i have a Toro lawnmower.. and I recall it being on the second to last knotch.. from the bottom that is.

I just read where they recommend the height to be 3" for SA. I will adjust my mower accordingly. Thanks for the tip!

don't make the mistake of correlating the notches with inches either. measure the actual distance between the blade and ground so you know what each level is.

my neighbor is convinced that level 3 on her mower is 3", can't convince her otherwise. but after measuring it myself it was actually 2.5"

[BoatDrinksQ5]

Best to just start at the top notch... cut.... measure grass...

lower.... cut....measure. Repeat.

Until you get to your desired mow height.

Don't forget to measure how much water you are putting down each sprinkle - you might be shocked by how little is getting down.

[whitehurst]

Well, I came home from work and went and checked out the lawn for chinches. Took me 1 minute to find them scrambling all over. Headed to aces and picked up some Ortho Bug Gone. Hopefully this helps. Next step, if this is indeed the cause, what should be my next plan of attack? Some sort of weed killer to get the misc weeds that have grown out in the dead spots? Then what? What about the dead areas? Will they grow back ok their own?

Thanks again for the help guys. Looking forward to a nice healthy green lawn. Now if I can tackle my dogs PH problem as he is also leaving spots of his own...

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