Can you stand another yard grass question please? HUGE estimate given :( (Cedar Park: how much, house)

[braveheartwendy]

Read all the threads I could about St. Augustine, Bermuda, Zoysia, etc. etc. which were very helpful, but still have a couple questions if you all wouldn't mind.

Bought our 30 year old house 2 years ago. Last summer a great deal of St. A in our back yard died. My hope was to do what I would have done in MidAtlantic - aerate and overseed, but have been told that will not work. Landscaper gave quote for 6.5 yards loam and 6.5 palettes of SA sod, and with labor it came out to $3,800. Ouch. Then I read on here that St. A is bad anyway. Landscaper said Zoysia would be substantially more expensive (about $650).

Can you recommend more options?

Can I aerate and try bermuda seed?

Can I try plugs of something and if so, do I need to amend the soil, etc?

If SA spreads so much, is there a chance it will just spread and eventually fill in all the big dead areas? If I water it once or twice a week, deeply, do I have a chance?

We have kids and dogs so yard gets lots of foot traffic. Totally open to making beds out of a portion of the yard and putting in drought resistant plants but still we'd need grass for dogs/kids.

Finally, landscaper said we needed to rake and top dress the front yard - for $580. Do you all do stuff like that and is there a much cheaper way to do this? I looked throughout our neighborhood and no one has perfect lawns so I don't need perfection, just nice, and there's little foot traffic out front.

Thank you very much!

[centralaustinite]

About how big is your lot?

[braveheartwendy]

1/3 of an acre.

[shankaupas]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I lost about 3/4 of my St A in my back yard last year. I called around to price new grass again. This would be my 3rd round of grass in 7 years but I have to put down something in the backyard with 2 dogs and 3 kids. I was thinking Zoysia would be best and I was quoted $180 a palette for Zoysia and $111 a palette for St A from The Grass Patch. These prices don't include delivery or installation. My husband and I don't mind a little labor (my husband put down the first round all by himself) so we'd probably skip the installation charge. But in your case $3800 sounds awfully high for St A. 6.5 palettes of St A would be about $722. So they are going to charge you $3078 for delivery, loam, and installation of the grass and loam?.

[motherofthree]

I guess it would depend on how much of the yard is dead and how much sun it gets. If you could post a picture of your yard that would help a lot.

My St. Augustine is just now starting to green up from the really low temps we had over the winter. Some of my lawn looks dead but in a month it will be all green at these temps. St. Augustine fills in fast.

I raked the really brown areas to get rid of the dead grass and put a light layer of compost all over the yard. I just get bags, dump it in the wheel barrow and take shovel fulls and fling it around. Compost adds good microorganisms to the soil to keep disease and insects away. They say to add 1/4" to the yard about once a year but I do less than that.

Just to give you an idea, we put St. Augustine sod down in our backyard ourselves 2 years ago. It took us 6 pallets at $125 each and about $150 of topsoil/compost. I'm not gonna lie it was back breaking work. We had to split it up because 3 pallets is the max we could do in a day - about 3 hours a pallet.

I really like St. Augustine. It can take a lot of shade unlike the other grasses that need full sun. It's super easy to edge around flower beds and stays out of flower beds unlike Bermuda. I only water once a week but deeply and the drought last summer didn't affect my grass at all.

I really hate Bermuda. Impossible to kill. However, St. Augustine has a tendency to get fungus when we have a lot of rain or humidity. I put cornmeal down once every 4 - 8 weeks and it keeps it in check. I buy a 50lb bag at Callahan's in Cedar Park. I think it's $16 a bag now. I put down 10 lb/ 1000 sq ft but it I have fungus ( and Grey Leaf spot seems to happen the most) then I put down 20lb / 1000 sq ft.

Also, St. Augustine cannot handle heavy foot traffic. So if you have a dog that runs the same path everyday - forget it.

Good Luck!

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by braveheartwendy

Read all the threads I could about St. Augustine, Bermuda, Zoysia, etc. etc. which were very helpful, but still have a couple questions if you all wouldn't mind.

Bought our 30 year old house 2 years ago. Last summer a great deal of St. A in our back yard died. My hope was to do what I would have done in MidAtlantic - aerate and overseed, but have been told that will not work. Landscaper gave quote for 6.5 yards loam and 6.5 palettes of SA sod, and with labor it came out to $3,800. Ouch. Then I read on here that St. A is bad anyway. Landscaper said Zoysia would be substantially more expensive (about $650).

Can you recommend more options?

Can I aerate and try bermuda seed?

Can I try plugs of something and if so, do I need to amend the soil, etc?

If SA spreads so much, is there a chance it will just spread and eventually fill in all the big dead areas? If I water it once or twice a week, deeply, do I have a chance?

We have kids and dogs so yard gets lots of foot traffic. Totally open to making beds out of a portion of the yard and putting in drought resistant plants but still we'd need grass for dogs/kids.

Finally, landscaper said we needed to rake and top dress the front yard - for $580. Do you all do stuff like that and is there a much cheaper way to do this? I looked throughout our neighborhood and no one has perfect lawns so I don't need perfection, just nice, and there's little foot traffic out front.

Thank you very much!

I really dislike the feel of st augustine, we are currently trying to figure out how to switch to zoysia or bermuda.

That being said I bought a pallet of st augustine last year (400 sq ft) for about $100 (I think). Price ranges would be 100-150 for a single pallet.

Call to a few places to get an idea of actual material costs.

Call a few different landscaping places to get a sense of the estimates.

[atxcio]

Bermuda can be seeded, from what I've heard. You can aerate, then put down a layer of compost and seed. I think that's what they did with the Zilker lawn prior to ACL, and it looked fantastic until the festival tore it up (because of the rain).

Although the St. Augustine may not be completely dead. You may want to try some compost/manure about 1/4" deep over the top of it, then water well and see what happens in the next 2-3 weeks. If it starts to fill back in, it will work pretty fast. If not, you've got soil improved with the compost for when you install a new lawn.

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by braveheartwendy

Read all the threads I could about St. Augustine, Bermuda, Zoysia, etc. etc. which were very helpful, but still have a couple questions if you all wouldn't mind.

Bought our 30 year old house 2 years ago. Last summer a great deal of St. A in our back yard died. My hope was to do what I would have done in MidAtlantic - aerate and overseed, but have been told that will not work. Landscaper gave quote for 6.5 yards loam and 6.5 palettes of SA sod, and with labor it came out to $3,800. Ouch. Then I read on here that St. A is bad anyway. Landscaper said Zoysia would be substantially more expensive (about $650).

Can you recommend more options?

Can I aerate and try bermuda seed?

Can I try plugs of something and if so, do I need to amend the soil, etc?

If SA spreads so much, is there a chance it will just spread and eventually fill in all the big dead areas? If I water it once or twice a week, deeply, do I have a chance?

We have kids and dogs so yard gets lots of foot traffic. Totally open to making beds out of a portion of the yard and putting in drought resistant plants but still we'd need grass for dogs/kids.

Finally, landscaper said we needed to rake and top dress the front yard - for $580. Do you all do stuff like that and is there a much cheaper way to do this? I looked throughout our neighborhood and no one has perfect lawns so I don't need perfection, just nice, and there's little foot traffic out front.

Thank you very much!

I feel your pain, that price does seem high, but may not be if you are resodding everything. But yes there are some less expensive alternatives that might be worth trying. I hesitate to give lawn advice because my lawn looks terrible right now after the weather we have had in the last year (drought followed by unusual freezes), and this is in spite of the tremendous effort I have put in to try and keep it looking decent. I did discover late in the summer that the lawn had Cinch bugs which probably accounts for its poor condition. I did spray for them but may need to do it again.

That said, here are some options I'm considering.

Every grass we can use in this area seems to be a trade off.

St. Augustine (SA) needs too much water and is prone to have problems with disease, iron deficiency and insects more then others. On the plus side it crowds out weeds well, easy to start from sod or plugs, fills in fast, does relatively well in partial shade and develops a nice thick lawn. It also stays green longer then Bermuda.

Bermuda is drought resistant, resistant to diseases, easy to start from seed or plugs, holds up well to foot traffic but it does not do well in shade and needs regular attention/maintenance to keep it out of flower and mulched beds. Yes it is possible to overseed your lawn with Bermuda and mid to late April is a good time to seed bermuda grass. You will have to water it every day to get it to germinate.

Zoysia with proper care is said to resist invasion of weeds and other grasses, as well as damage from insects and diseases. It can be started with sprigs or sod blocks. It is moderatly drought resistant but most types of Zoysia do not do well in shade. Pallisades Zoysia is supposed to do as well in partial shade as SA. Zoysia is slower growing, so easier to maintain, but may take one or two years to develope as thick a lawn as SA or Bermuda would do in 3-6 months. Zoysia also browns out sooner in winter and turns green later in spring then SA or Bermuda.

I'm considering is to plant Zoysia with plugs into my existing lawn. Watch this movie, it appears relatively easy to do. Zoysia Farm Nurseries: Planting Zoysia Zoysia Farms contends that the Zoysia will establish it self in an existing lawn when done this way. Although they have not responded to my email asking if Zoysia can take over in a SA lawn. I'm not sure that in the long run any thriving St. Augustine grass wouldn't crowd it out, but I may have to try it and see.

You could do the same thing using Pallisades Zoysia sod plugs if your lawn needs a more shade tolerant grass.

Maybe you cold hire a teenager from the neighborhood to install the plugs for you, you can probably find some happy to have the work.

Top Dressing I was interested to find this web site from one of the larger lawn care firms in the area, recommends against top dressing a lawn with dillo dirt or compost, they recommend fertilizing instead. http://www.realgreenlawns.com/austin...p_dressing.htm

[shankaupas]

Originally Posted by atxcio

Although the St. Augustine may not be completely dead. You may want to try some compost/manure about 1/4" deep over the top of it, then water well and see what happens in the next 2-3 weeks. If it starts to fill back in, it will work pretty fast. If not, you've got soil improved with the compost for when you install a new lawn.

Is Dillo Dirt the best kind of compost to use?

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by shankaupas

Is Dillo Dirt the best kind of compost to use?

Dillo Dirt is what many people use (I think Zilker used this), but I use the Revitalizer compost from the Natural Gardener. This year I may try their straight manure compost. Stinky, but I bet the lawn will love it.