Need green grass! What am I doing wrong?

[lh_newbie]

AstroTurf stays green 12-months out of the year and is very weed tolerant.

[Rakin]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

AstroTurf stays green 12-months out of the year and is very weed tolerant.

I hear in California they use green paint in the winter. You could even paint your favorite football teams logo in the middle of the yard.

[TXNGL]

the pecan tree will be the last to bud out leaves and there is never usually a frost after that>>

My husband and I always forget this and go through a yearly, "what's wrong with the pecan?" discussion. It's just so dead looking when everything else is budding out. Our St. Augustine has a few green patches.

[jpeagle21]

Why would want to have to mow rye grass during the winter? Also, to me it kind-of looks odd to have this lush green lawn in the middle of winter while everyone else has brown grass.

Be patient with your lawn. It will green-up pretty good next month. The advice from one of the other posters about infrequent deep watering is the way to go. Be sure to put down crabgrass preventer pre-emergent during the winter time.

[mom2one]

I loved the astroturf comment! (Maybe that's the way to go -- no watering and no mowing.) And you're right about painting it green -- I think some folks in Arizona have gone that route to keep their water bills lower. (Who can blame them?)

Thanks to all for the vote of patience...I'm not sure what type of grass I've got, but it looks the same as everyone else's in my neighborhood. Heck, I probably just wanted to look greener faster since I put in all that effort

I bet you all are right about that Rye grass. It looked great all winter, but I didn't think about the mowing factor -- that's a definite dampener. I'm going to wait another couple of weeks and see what else I can do. Is it worth taking the remaining Scott's TurfBuilder back to Lowe's for a refund since it didn't do anything for my yard?

[TriumphOfTheSprint]

Originally Posted by mom2one

Thanks to all for the vote of patience...I'm not sure what type of grass I've got, but it looks the same as everyone else's in my neighborhood. Heck, I probably just wanted to look greener faster since I put in all that effort

Here's why it's important to know which kind of grass you have - there are two different weed/feed products, one for bermuda and one for st. augustine. Using the wrong product can damage or kill the grass.

Bermuda has very thin blades Bermudagrass - Weed Identification, while st. augustine has wider blades St. Augustine grass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scott's has two weed/feed products, their standard turfbuilder has yellow on the bag and is for bermuda, their other product has purple on the bag and is for st.augustine (it's called Bonus-S, not Turfbuilder).

So, the question is: did you put the right product down for the type of grass that you have?

[momof2dfw]

The other problem is you started too late. Around here you MUST put down a pre-emirgent weed control back in October/November. This helps prevent the weeds popping up come the warm weather. Miss doing this step and it takes a lot longer to get a good lawn w/ little to no weeds in the spring.

If you want to get rid of the weeds without using pesticides and then dealing w/ dead looking weeds in your yard you have to pull them out, roots and all. I bought one of those "Weed Hounds" from Home Depot or Lowe's several years ago for less than $10 and it sure does save the back and hands from pulling weeds and it gets the root. You can also give your kids a big 10 gallon bucket and tell them they get a few dollars for every bucket of weeds they pull. This helps the grass and the yard looks better even with the little bit of green we have now.

Winter Rye Grass - we have dealt with it. It sure does make your yard look pretty in the winter. Only problem is besides having to mow 12 months out of the year is when you decide to not do it. For the next several years after having put down Rye grass and then not doing it you will have a spotty yard full of what looks like weeds. It kind of is but it is from the Rye Grass that is still active in your yard even though you didn't plant it. It will grow in clumps and is a PITA to get rid of.

What you need to do now is:
1. Get rid of any weeds you have in the yard. Either by pesticides or pulling them.
2. Water properly like mentioned earlier. Oh, if you over water what also happens is the roots do not grow deep looking for water. Instead they are shallow and then come winter when a good hard freeze comes it will kill your grass even though it is dormant. With the roots deeper they are insulated from the freeze. So water properly.
3. Wait a few weeks before fertilizing again. Make sure you get the proper fertilizer for your type of grass. I'm betting that if you do steps 1 & 2 you won't feel the need to fertilize again real soon.

Now, who wants to come pick my weeds. Being gone for over a week (almost 2 weeks) it sure has gotten nasty in the backyard.

[lh_newbie]

Pre emergents get put down going into winter; a weed-n-feed can be laid down as a post-emergent like the original poster did. Nothing wrong with that.

[GayleTX]

A home salesperson was telling me recently about a customer that visited Dallas from CA early last fall (still warm weather) to look at houses, bought a lot, made arrangements to have his house built - then in December he moved his family here. The house was fine but he was furious with the developer because they had "allowed all the grass to die" and everything in the whole neighborhood was dead!! He was furious, theatening to sue, etc, etc. He didn't get the concept of 'dormant' season!! It took a two lawyers and a minister to convince him that he was not being cheated out of a good lawn that he'd paid for along with the house!

[TXNGL]

It took a two lawyers and a minister to convince him that he was not being cheated out of a good lawn that he'd paid for along with the house!>>

ROFL! This was worth reading again just for this sentence alone!