I have been busy this weekend in efforts to beautify our yard. Last year when we bought this house it had the most beautiful grass, and now it is patchy and is being overtaken by this weed. We thought it was crabgrass. Earlier in the year we used a pre-emergent to kill the crab grass. I was annoyed that we still had so much, it's like we killed it and now it lays on the surface all intertwined with the real grass strangling our real grass. I have been addicted to pulling this stuff out because it is EvEryWheRe! It lays horizontally on top of our grass so you pull up one strand and it leads you to another and another and another. It sucks you in as you pull it because you want to get it all out so the real grass can grow in, and suddenly you look around and you are kneeling in a pile of dirt because you have pulled out all the weeds that have taken over and now you have no weeds and no grass. 
I have spent hours tearing up this weed and today I felt totally defeated! My fingers hurt, my back hurt, and there seemed like there was no end in sight! Kevin suggested going to a nursery that advertised professional answers to all our questions. I took a sample of the weedy crabgrass to make sure we got the right help.
I gave the sample to the worker and he said it was St Augustine, he asked what kind of grass we had. We have St. Augustine. As it turns out our grass has a shallow root system because it doesn't get watered deep enough. But the real problem is grubs. Grubs larvae are growing in the soil, and it just as they hatch they start eating the grass roots and that is why our grass is all dead.
Thankfully I haven't ripped out all of our grass, here are the helpful hints from Roland at Rainbow Gardens.
1. We bought this worm sponge that is filled with millions of microscopic worms that burrow in and eat the grubs and bugs and then they die. We just get a bucket of water and squeeze the sponge many times in the water, this releases the worms, then we spray the worm water all over the grass. Sounds weird I hope it works!
2. Water the grass in the mornings. I always figured it was better to water at night because then it didn't dry up as fast and the water sat longer on the lawn. Apparently that is the worst because the water sits too long and causes fungus to grow. So a good deep watering in the morning is the best way to go... Not the best with work and school schedules, but we will make something work.
3. After the grubs are dead and the grass starts growing well is the best time to apply a good fertilizer, Texas Tee was suggested, along with a light "seasoning" of compost. He said to apply the compost like you would season your food- lightly sprinkle- I can handle the seasoning.
Hopefully in a few weeks we will have a beautiful lawn to match our beautiful new flowers.
5 comments:
Thanks for the tips. Here's your chance at getting more hits on your blog...you can become the "garden girl"!!!
Sounds like a lot of work! There is nothing nicer than a beautiful green lawn--good luck with the grubs!
Your flowers look lovely, by the way!
good luck linds - glad it is you doing yardwork and not me -- i am not for that at all as you know - altho we might be buying a house and it has LOTS of yard!!
Linds, your fix for the grubs sounds just as nasty as the grubs themselves! Worm sponge yuck! I do think it is pretty funny you spent so long pulling out your grass that was disguised as a weed.
Aren't yards exciting? This year in an effort to help around my parents yard we bought a spray to help kill some weeds and it ended up killing about 15 of my mom's rose bushes... Oops!
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