carolinagirl:

Since you are new to organic maintenance, I recommend you read and follow the Organic Lawn Care frequently asked questions page.

Then, if you have any more questions, post back to this thread.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Lawn Care FAQ

Apply corn meal @ 20#/1000 sq ft. Water it in if your lawn needs water or wait for rain if it doesn't. Your lawn probably doesn't need irrigation this time of year, and too much water is only making your problem worse.
At what height are you cutting your lawn? For saint augustine, longer blades are better. A layer of good quality compost also will help almost any problem.
I wouldn't lay any more new sod this year. Quit relying on the chemicals - they don't work anyway. Go organic, be patient, and next year, water only when your lawn really needs it, then water deeply.

Thanks for the advice since I have signed up with Trugreen lawn service because so many different things are overtaking my lawn!! I am freaking out about this! I have tried to stay on top of these and like overnite they spread and friends have told me to get Truegreen on it, since they are going to die out soon due to the cold..what measures do I take to prevent them next spring?? I have never had this problem before. any help

Carolinagirl, sit back, relax, take some very deep breaths. Embrace the calm. Relax. Sigh!

It's only grass.
Contrary to what the salesman told you, St Augustine is probably the easiest grass to care for. All you have to do is do it the right way.

St Augustine only needs water when it needs it. You can get into a routine very easily which makes it less hassle for you. During the heat of summer I water once a week but I water for 3-5 hours each zone. For my sprinkler and water pressure, that means 3/8 to 5/8 inch of water (measured with a cat food can). That is only reserved for the hottest part of summer - once a week. This time of year I'm watering every other week on my way to once a month. Watering more often than that is ASKING for weeds to be a problem. Weed seeds need continual moisture on the surface to sprout. If you deny that water, they cannot sprout.

Set your mower to the highest setting and have someone weld it in that position. THERE IS NEVER A REASON TO MOW ST AUGUSTINE LOWER THAN THE HIGHEST SETTING. Don't bag. I've seen St aug thriving at 30 inches high in the sand dunes in Texas. For a lawn it should be more like 4 inches when mowed. Tall grass can go much longer between watering because it has deeper roots. All that is a good thing.

Fertilize with corn meal, alfalfa, soy bean meal, cottonseed meal, or whatever you can find cheap at your local feed store. Be sure it is ground up, though. If you fertilized with deer corn you would have a corn field to mow. The application rate is 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you want more green for longer, bump it up to 40 to 60 pounds per 1,000. Use your wallet as a guide (fertilize until it hurts!). I fertilize on the federal holidays starting with Washington's Birthday. Then Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving.

Call Trugreen and tell them you don't need them. You won't. Next year resist the urge to water weekly until the serious heat of summer. That alone will do more to prevent weeds than anything else you can do.

You'll have to do something special about the button weed. St Augustine does not compete well against broadleaf weeds. Do you have so much you cannot pull it by hand?

Nutgrass is a special issue. It is a swamp grass that cannot thrive in a dry soil. However, it can thrive in pockets of moisture. Let's say you dug a hole for some reason and put a better draining soil back in the hole. The soil around the hole can act like a bucket holding moisture for much longer than it should. That provides a little wetland area for the nutgrass to grow. Or you might just be in a low area or have poorly graded soil. In any case you are not on high ground in a desert! Any more info you have on that would be helpful.

this is for san antonio i can't relax, got alot of money in this yard and all i am seeing is weeds taking over. we hand sodded our yard ourselves and not to mention the money. just don't want to do the yard over next spring. the true green told me that st augustine is the worst grass ever!!!
I am determined to have nice grass.
thanks for the advice above and i think i am going to cancel the lawn service. i don't see where it will help me.
when do you apply pre-emergent to prevent the weeds after winter or do you spray during winter?

dchall_san_antonio:

Here at UF(IFAS) they like to say water St. Aug when it shows it's dry. Why do you do your method instead of that?

Tomato. Tomahto. Please reread what I said about watering and why. You only need to go two sentences deep.

One thing you have not told us is the level of shade in your yard. IF you have a relatively shady yard, you will be hard pressed to have success with St. Augustine as it does need at least 5 or 6 hours of good sun per day. It tolerates some shade a little better than say bermuda ot buffalo, but it will not tolerate heavy shade.

We have several Texas live oaks in the front so my yard is very shady. My neighbor to the west had a tree that had been trying to die for about 10 years but the owner resisted taking it out. Well this summer it had to go. That opened up my west side to full sun in the afternoon. It is amazing how the St Aug has improved with more sunlight. My east side grass gets zero hours of direct sun and all day of 90% filtered light. It looks terrible, but the west side grass looks incredible. I think it is time to thin the trees again.

With regards to the sunlight requirements for saint augustine, I had a landscape contractor tell me that plants in general can adjust, to some extent, their sun light requirement over time. The context for this was a new garden that the contractor had just planted for me behind a young bur oak tree. The garden faced west, and currently gets full sun all afternoon, and into the evening. But one day the bur oak tree will provide significant shade in the late afternoon and evening to the garden. According to the landscaper, since the garden will be shaded very gradually, year to year, then the plants in the garden should adjust to less sunlight. I suspect an old established saint augustine lawn would be the same way. In other words, a lawn that existed prior to the tree being planted will adjust better to the shade beneath an aging oak than a new lawn would.

Thin oak trees just to grow a better lawn? That's just not logical to me. Especially in Texas. Let the native shade tolerant ground cover fill in. It will be just as pretty.

By thinning I mean to reduce the foliage on the limbs, not reduce the number of trees. We do that every few years to remove ball moss, limbs that no longer support leaves (they look dead), and improve the amount of sunlight penetration.

Our dominant shade tolerant ground cover is called horse herb. It is a broadleaf plant with tiny yellow flowers. Some people like it but not me. It can spread to completely shade out a St Aug lawn in one season. Here is a picture...

My preference is to trim my trees only when necessary. I had tree limbs starting to rub against my roof. It was necessary for me to do something about that. I had split live oak limbs in the spring from heavy wet snow. It was necessary for me to remove those limbs too. But it is not necessary for me to remove limbs or foliage to increase sunlight penetration. Lawns and grass are not necessary.
Yes we have horse herb in my area as well. And while it competes with the saint augustine just fine in the shady areas, it does not do well in full (or even 50%) sun. It's rather delicate. And prefers lots of moisture. I'm greatful for it. And that pic looks pretty to me.