Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Bermuda, St. Augustine, Zoysia, Centipede, Bahia, Paspalum, etc
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scottsborodude
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Joined: April 27th, 2020, 5:07 pm
Location: Scottsboro, AL
Grass Type: bermuda, zoysia, bluegrass
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Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by scottsborodude » April 27th, 2020, 6:37 pm

My name is Justin and i’m from Scottsboro (North Alabama).


I purchased a house a few years ago and it’s time to take some action on my yard. I personally want to mow low, de-thatch, aeriate and overseed... but the question is I don’t know what to seed with.

I want zenith zoysia for my first choose but was told it will be very difficult.

Second option is handcock highlander bermuda.

third is outspride oasis blend (blackjack and maya).

what are your thoughts and suggestions??

pictures are below!!!

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ECUPirate
Posts: 353
Joined: April 1st, 2014, 10:58 am
Location: Eastern NC
Grass Type: Bermuda
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Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by ECUPirate » April 28th, 2020, 9:42 am

Curious to hear what you were told about Zenith Zoysia? I'm looking into reseeding my yard with Zenith in a few weeks.

scottsborodude
Posts: 3
Joined: April 27th, 2020, 5:07 pm
Location: Scottsboro, AL
Grass Type: bermuda, zoysia, bluegrass
Lawn Size: Not Specified
Level: Not Specified

Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by scottsborodude » April 28th, 2020, 9:57 am

ECUPirate wrote:
April 28th, 2020, 9:42 am
Curious to hear what you were told about Zenith Zoysia? I'm looking into reseeding my yard with Zenith in a few weeks.
i was told it has a high germination failure rate for existing lawns. i would just give it a try but it’s pretty expensive... i was hoping to see if anyone else has tried and has had any success?

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ECUPirate
Posts: 353
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Location: Eastern NC
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Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by ECUPirate » April 28th, 2020, 10:14 am

I think a high germination failure rate will occur with any type of seed in existing lawns if the existing lawn isn't prepared for new seed. Before I seed mine I'm going to nuke the existing lawn with Roundup, water for 2 weeks to get any weed seeds that haven't germinated yet to germinate, nuke it again with Roundup and then drop seed. From what I've read over the years here, you want to eliminate as much competition for the new seeds as possible, so they aren't shaded out by the existing lawn/weeds.

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Joined: December 17th, 2008, 1:53 am
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Grass Type: St Augustine
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Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » May 3rd, 2020, 2:57 pm

Before picking a new grass type, why is so much of it dead looking? Lack of rain/irrigation? Were the pictures taken during winter dormancy? Was it just sprayed for weeds? You need to know so you don't repeat the mistake with the next lawn. Some people are reluctant to water the lawn and instead, they rely entirely on rainfall. If that is you, then bermuda should be your first choice. It might look dormant from drought, but it will come back. The other grasses might not fair so well.

You are in the southern part of the transition zone. One of the impacts of Global Warming is the transition zone is moving north. You will be fully in the warm season zone before you know it.

Do any of your neighbors have zoysia? Before you pick a zoysia variety, you need to know exactly which one you want and WHY. Some of them are temperamental and some are tough as nails.

Do any of your neighbors have St Augustine? If you planted one piece of St Augustine now, in a few years your entire lawn would be St Augustine. So would your neighbor's lawn. It spreads and smothers most other turf grasses including/especially bermuda.


scottsborodude
Posts: 3
Joined: April 27th, 2020, 5:07 pm
Location: Scottsboro, AL
Grass Type: bermuda, zoysia, bluegrass
Lawn Size: Not Specified
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Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by scottsborodude » May 4th, 2020, 2:08 pm

thanks for the responses everyone.

i water my lawn frequently, i do not have a a sprinkler system. the pictures are prior to me posting this.

i had just sprayed for weeds. the areas a mixture of weeds and centipede if I had to guess. the top of the grass is red, which i believe the weed product I put out did that.

one of my neighbors had bermuda and is professionally taken care of and treated. the other has zoysia, centipede and fescue mix. i believe prior to buying the house i’m in, the owner seeded it and looks rough now. the majority of my front yard is zoysia, bermuda, centipede and bluegrass i believe. i do believe i a little bit of at. aug.... i feel like I have a mixture of everything and trying to figure out the best way to move foward...

thanks for the information!

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » May 5th, 2020, 2:56 am

Deep and infrequent is the mantra for garden watering. I live in the Texas Hill Country where temperatures have been in the 90s for about a week now. Temps were in the 80s for a month and 70s a month before that. Tonight I am watering for the first time this year. We got enough rain 2 months ago for the lawn to go this long without supplemental irrigation. My oscillating sprinkler has been on full sweep for 5 hours putting down about 5/8-inch of water.

Many years ago I worked this out with a lawn care professional in Phoenix. It works very well in the south and works as a general guide in the north. With temps below 70, deep water once a week. With temps between 70 and 80, water once every 3 weeks. With temps between 80 and 90, water every other week. With temps in the 90s water once per week. If you get temps higher than 100 I can go on, but most people don't. The trick that makes this work is to water 1 full inch when you water, and don't spread it out over several days. You and measure 1 inch by setting out cat food or tuna cans and time how long it takes your sprinkler to fill all of them. That is your watering time from now on. Mine is 8 hours but our water restrictions keep me from doing it all at one time. 5/8-inch should last me all week, though. There are other factors like humidity, wind, soil type, grass type, and grass height. Taller grass needs less water for a couple reasons (deeper roots, more shade on the soil, and less wind on the soil).

For you trying to go cold turkey into deep and infrequent watering would be a problem. All the bermuda would be fine, but the other grasses need to be weaned off of the frequent watering. I would get started with it by doing the can test to time your sprinkler system. Then stretch out the watering until the grass begins to look stressed somewhere. Then water it an inch again and see how long it goes. Note that the surface of the soil will dry out and become very hard. That is not an indicator of when you need to water. The grass blades will fold together when it gets dry.

northeastlawn
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Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by northeastlawn » May 5th, 2020, 9:34 am

Did you mean below 70 once a month, or once a week?

It seems like below 70 and at 90-100 you watering the same.

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » May 5th, 2020, 12:14 pm

Thanks. Yes, once a month for below 70.

imauafan
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Joined: May 7th, 2015, 4:12 pm
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Re: Help!!! lawn is in bad shape!!

Post by imauafan » June 20th, 2020, 9:06 am

Justin,

I live less than an hour west of you just outside of Huntsville. My recommendation is to not overseed but to try and grow your existing bermuda. If you apply the recommendations given here on this forum you will be successful. My yard was an awful mess a few years ago but I started working at it and it is nearly where I want it to be. I started out with bare dirt, weeds, and just a little bit of bermuda and by the end of this summer I expect all of my yard (front and back) to be solid bermuda with minimal weeds. It didn't happen overnight, I've been working on it for 4-5 years (at least). I almost had my yard re-sodded a couple of times but each time decided to wait and try to figure out what went wrong with the original sod so that I wouldn't be throwing money away. I had sod guys tell me my bermuda was too far gone and that re-sodding was the only solution but I proved them wrong just by following the advice here on this forum, mowing low and often, fertilize with a high N fertilizer every 4-6 weeks (at the correct rate), water deeply and infrequently, and apply pre-emergent at the right times. My yard went from being one of the worst on my street to now being one of the better yards. My grass is almost to the point that I can move to the next step of getting it level which I will start working on next summer. Also, I'm slowly going to to start transitioning to organic lawn care so that I can hopefully reduce the amount of chemical fertilizer that I use.

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