February lawn care in South Texas

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CCtexas
Posts: 10
Joined: April 30th, 2018, 9:41 am
Location: Corpus Christi, Texas
Grass Type: St Augustine in front, Bermuda in back
Lawn Size: Not Specified
Level: Not Specified

February lawn care in South Texas

Post by CCtexas » February 1st, 2019, 1:04 pm

It's been drizzly wet and fairly warm in January and I've got clover and other weeds appearing in our lawn. We just mowed yesterday to help but it's looking like we may have a problem with weeds bc we were treating for a fungus last fall with cornmeal-which definitely helped but this warm, damp, winter is not helping. Can't tell yet if we will still be dealing with a fungus, but there are weaker patches of the St Augustine sprouting weeds now. I bought a bag of corn gluten meal and am wondering if it's too early to hit it as a pre-emergent now. Also, should we go ahead and start spring dose of fertilizer (cornmeal, alfalfa etc) now or wait until after Feb 14 - which is when we would normally apply it? Temps for next week are 60s to 70s. Thanks!

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Dchall_San_Antonio
Posts: 3341
Joined: December 17th, 2008, 1:53 am
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Grass Type: St Augustine
Lawn Size: 5000-10000
Level: Advanced

Re: February lawn care in South Texas

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » March 12th, 2019, 11:27 am

I'm not sure I would have had a competent reply back when you posted this. In retrospect, Feb 1st was probably too late for preem in Corpus. I've never had any luck with corn gluten meal as a preem. I overdosed my lawn with it on a monthly basis several years ago and never saw a reduction in weeds.

The Iowa State trials of CGM on weeds showed that the best performance they could get was an 80% reduction in weeds and that was the best of the best, definitely not the average. And I want to say that was after 40 pounds per 1,000 square feet applied twice several weeks apart. It was not natural or affordable to use it like that.

CCtexas
Posts: 10
Joined: April 30th, 2018, 9:41 am
Location: Corpus Christi, Texas
Grass Type: St Augustine in front, Bermuda in back
Lawn Size: Not Specified
Level: Not Specified

Re: February lawn care in South Texas

Post by CCtexas » May 17th, 2019, 10:43 am

Thanks! We just decided to go back to basics...spreading cornmeal we got from a feed store ($10/50lbs.) and pulling the weeds by hand. We haven't watered once yet because we've had ample rain. Our St Augustine yard looks the best of any on our street! We will continue following w your advice for fertilizing --FHS-- and infrequent watering.

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