Help me save my yard

It’s all fixable. Definitely need to soil test both the soil for the yard and your beds. Must be something missing for the boxwoods to all be fading like that. Boxwoods lately have struggled at times for whatever reason, but usually it’s one here or there and not the whole row of them.

However, you definitely need to trim them regularly and please weed the beds.

The grass looks as though it may hold too much moisture in that area or maybe it’s a high traffic area? Also, confirm your grass type. That obviously is a determining factor of what it may need.

Lastly, it’s a tough time to do much. I would just get your soil test done. Decide what it needs based on that and plan to hit it hard this spring and give it the summer to see if it can thicken up. Cutting the grass at the proper height and often enough is important based on your grass type.

Grass is centipede. I understand now is not the time to fix it but want to start preparing for whatever it is I will need to do.

I'd say in the front there is very little traffic on the grass. Also has a decent slope to the street so water is not puddling in this area.

The back gets more traffic due to the dog. I will say that the grass that is flooded in that last picture is starting to go the way of the front with patches/holes of dead spots. But it is much thicker back there. The very back of the yard has no issues.

I run my sprinklers for 10 minutes once a week during the winter, it hasn't seemed to help the beds or yard. Located in the baton rouge area.

So your back yard is more than likely the water being your primary concern. Take care of that and then you’ll have to give it time to see how the grass does. Another thing to think about in your back yard is the dog. If your dog is consistently peeing in the back yard in similar areas, you may see lots of brown spots due to an overdose of Nitrogen.

As far as where to start. Get that soil test back and note your soil deficiencies and try to correct that. If you’re not sure how, then a good online resource is Allyn Hane (Lawn Care Nut). He has lots of YouTube content and information on summer grasses such as centipede. I use the NEX products for soul micro/macro nutrients, aeration (all liquid products). In addition, I typically utilize a nitrogen and iron supplement (fertilizer and/or Double Dark granules). They have lots of products available online. Some things I order from them, others you can simply find at your local store, such as Milorganite at Tractor Supply. That is a slow release organic nitrogen supplement that you can load your yard with without fear of burning it.

Hope all that at least gets you started. One of the harder things in all of this is figuring out your yards sq. footage and then how you can divide your yard in an organized fashion to ensure proper dosing of any/all chemicals you may put down.

Forgot to mention water via sprinklers. You really shouldn’t need sprinklers at this time of the year. Centipede should go dormant at some point this winter and boxwoods don’t really need much water. I found they actually do better with no sprinklers most of the time, although once a week for 10 min isn’t that much. In the summer, however, you should water once every 2-3 days depending on heat. You don’t want too much water because then the soil will remain saturated and your grass then has no reason to grow a deeper root system for nutrition from the soil. It simply has shallow roots and gets all nutrients from the surface.

Went back and just looked at your post regarding pre-emergent and Cesius. That’s all great, but I would question the use of anything such as Celsius which may agitate the grasss if not dosed exactly correct, especially with turf that is already struggling. How old is your lawn?

Thanks for the response. Would you recommend liquid or granular fertilizer? I have backpack sprayer and broadcast spreader already.

Also, would you recommend atrazine over Celsius for the winter weeds? I’m about to have to apply another application of post emergent to the spots in the yard I haven’t hit previously.

Granular fert but no weed and feed products. Craw posted the fill chart for a winter weed mix. Use that and save your Celsius.

We all have terrible soil. Aerate and top dress with sand or sandy loam. 15-0-15 would be a good fert to use. When I was Baton Rouge I used 16-0-8 on St Aug and centipede. Usually 2 apps followed by monthly apps of liquid iron.

If the ph in your soil is truly 7.92 then you will want to work to get it to 5-6 for centipede. I do find it strange that your lawn and shrubs have the exact same ph but I'm not sure how the samples were taken and I'm not real familiar with LSU's reporting.

The nitrogen recommendations seem a bit high to me. Centipede doesn't like a lot of fert. I would suggest maybe 2-3 applications of fert at 2lbs of N per thousand. That would give you 4-6lbs for the year. I'm going by the ammonium sulfate suggestion by the way.

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You should work lowering your soil pH but do it slowly. I like this publication from MIss State LINK and focus Table 1. If you have clay soil, and I’m sure you do based on your current soil pH, you’ll note the pounds of elemental sulfur in the table matches the sulfur recommendation by the AgCenter in the soil test analysis. However, note the publication recommends not exceeding 2 pounds of elemental sulfur per 100 sq ft per year, so you are looking at 3 year period to lower pH to the optimal target range for centipede. Personally, I’d suggest using elemental sulfur on the lawn over aluminum sulfate, it works slowly, less chance of damaging the lawn grass and it is cheaper. Don’t try to correct this lowering the soil pH in one year.

Lawn fertilization of centipede, LSU AgCenter and other land grant universities in the south, recommend not exceeding 1 lb of N per 1000 sq ft per year. LINK. To calculate how much 15-x-x is equal to 1 lb of N per 1000 sq ft divide 100 by 15, which 6 2/3 lbs per 1000 sq ft. Now, the AgCenter recommends for centipede to apply 0.5 lbs of N (3 1/3 lbs of 15-x-x) per 1000 in mid-April, followed by a second 0.5 lb N (3 1/3 lbs of 15-x-x) application per 1000 sq ft, if you think necessary based on the how the lawn looks, in June/July.

Obviously, use a lawn fertilizer and not straight ammonium sulfate, urea, or ammonium nitrate (consumer can’t given buy that in large amounts, bomb making and all that stuff) as noted in AgCenter’s soil test results - these are components of lawn fertilizers anyway.

I wish the AgCenter they would revise their reporting procedures for soil test results for home owners in regards to lawns but they haven’t - basically you get the same report that was originally designed for commercial farmers who understand this stuff and use these the recommended fertilizers in bulk. A little more difficult for the average homeowner to understand without a background in chemistry/soil chemistry.