Best of luck. Is it just a patch or 2 or is this invading from the neighbors? If it is just a patch, you can roundup it. Once the bermuda is dead (usually takes a couple tries.) You can take plugs of st aug from another part of the yard to fill in the patch. If there is a never ending source of bermuda invasion - like a neighbors lawn, you are in trouble. The only way to stop bermuda in the longrun is by blocking out the sun.

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.

The problem with beneficial nematodes is that the are very sensitive to chemicals and dry weather. Hope that you have been organic for a while otherwise the nematodes won't work. Keep the lawn as wet as possible while they do their work. Praying Mantis may work also to kill some bugs. I have had two properties with lots of moles. First time I tried to kill them. This time I let them live and once they ate up all the grubs they moved to another spot. They used to be in my front yard. Now they are all in the back yard. Had to add a little grass where the moles tunneled, but they ate more pests than they ruined grass. Don't give up and go back to TruGreen. TruGreen does short-term cures but looking at my neighbors who use TruGreen, the magic of the chemicals doesn't last and they're so bad for you and your neighbors. The TruGreen employees are not well-trained. Today I watched one spray grub and weed killer on my neighbors' lawn with only gloves and no mask or protective clothing. His cotton pants were soaked to the knees with chemicals. This is the guy who tells you his chemicals are safe. Doesn't that tell you something? I've been working on improving the soil on my lawn for years. Natural fertilizer, some lime and my lawn is green and lush as could be. I get complemented on my lawn by all who walk by, but if you get up close, I have lots of weeds, but they are green and when I mow them, they look like lush grass. The weeds and natural grasses are native so the thrive better in the local climate. I think the better lawn care is to improve the soil get as close to native grass as you can, without heavy fertilizer use, but with compost perhaps a little added topsoil each year. TruGreen overfertilizes so the grass roots stay short and when you have dry weather or a drought the grass all dies. Personally, I wish people would worry more about their health than their lawns. My backyard is now half wildflowers and wild grasses which require no care and If I choose to mow them, they would look like a lawn too. Good luck with your lawn, but I hope you can worry about more important things than bugs and dead patches. It isn't the end of the world. Leukemia and lung disease and chemical sensitivity from lawn chemical exposure could be the end of the world.

While I hate to copy a url and paste it, I don't mind helping others with the code to fix their posting. Here's your message with links to the images. I tried embedding the images into the message but they are huge. Much faster to link to them. If you want to skip the story, just look at the last picture. I need help finding an organic way to control these! Thanks! Well, I just bought my first house a couple months ago and it turns out the giant headache was included. The lawn was in horrid condition. Prior to buying the house, the well pump was broken and the owners had given up on watering the nice St. Augustine lawn. They also stopped their tru-green service. Ever wonder how a St. Augustine lawn looks when you stop watering it in florida(before the rain comes) and stop using pesticides? Its not pretty. Some of the lawn was salvageable with watering(the well was fixed when I moved in). Bringing the lawn back was a daunting task and I had no idea where to start. I have since found Garden Web and the Oragnic Lawn Care forum. I have started on once section of my lawn, a small corner under the old oak tree. Per suggestions found in this forum, I have top dressed the area with a little less than 1/2" compost, put down 10lb/1,000ft soybean meal, continued watering once a week around 5am, and I continue to mow high. Within the past month, the rain has really picked up. There was three day stretch in which every night around 8pm it rained 1"+. All this water didnt help out my lawn. It quickly developed grey leaf spot that spread to my entire nice green corner section. I have since attacked it with the recommended dose of Actinovate, still awaiting results. There are more probelms. There is a section of this corner that has developed some odd charecteristics. It all started out as a small 1'x1' patch of turf that looked like it had thatch problems. It has since grown into a monster. Here is a close up. The patch of this is now about 6'x8' and its not pretty. I was about to ignore it and assume it was "end stage grey leaf spot" as the fungus was pretty extensive. That was until I got down on my hands and knees and took a closer look It sems something has been muching on my soft green blades. And honestly, what little critter wouldnt want to? So now that the leaf spot will soon be under control (pending Actinovate effectiveness and use of corn meal 10-20lb/1,000ft) How do I figure out who's visiting the all you can eat buffet? I couldnt find any suspects, other than a couple of these guys(spittlebug) So now I ask for everyones help! Where do I start? How do I figure out who has their hand (or multiple hands) in the cookie jar? Update: Well, I went out to take a larger picture so everyone could see the shape/area involved. Something didnt add up so I put in some more 'hands and knees' time. Guess who I found? Take a look below The organic answer you are looking for is called BT worm killer. It works immediately to stop the caterpillars from feeding. It might take four days for them to die but once you stop them from eating, that's all you care about. It is sold by Safer and by Green Light. One application is all you need.