re: New House, lawn is TERRIBLE. First steps?

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Craw - how did you find all of the specialized folks at LSUAgCenter? You seem to know a lot of contacts. My particular county agent has not been helpful on several occasions. I get better advice from this board than from him. Do you have a personal directory? I do a ton of landscaping and yard stuff....and my yard always gets hit with a fungi or insect. I would love to know some of your resources to aid me in the good fight

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Well truth be told, I worked for the LSU AgCenter for 3 decades as a researcher, extension specialist and teacher - in aquatics, not terrestrial - but obviously I know/knew and interacted with many of the extension specialists in various ag disciplines in the LSU AgCenter and at other land grant universities.

It’s always disappointing to hear when person is not getting the information/assistance they should be from extension agents in a timely fashion. I can truthfully say at the end of my career the AgCenter the extension had 1/2 the number of extension agents in the state as when I started my career, downsizing, etc. - that’s part of the problem, they are stretched thin nowadays. Honestly, it was rare for parish/country extension agents to not be responsive to stakeholders request for information and assistance; if they weren’t, they didn’t last long. I know things changed as the old guard have retired and were replaced by younger, less experienced personnel. In urban settings with large populations 1 or 2 agents obliviously can make site visit to peoples homes on routine basis, but they should be responsive to answering calls or returning emails. Younger extension agents still in the learning phase who don’t know answers to questions by stakeholders have Ph.D. extension specialist faculty on main campus in Baton Rouge to help assist in getting the answers - it’s the way the system is supposed to operate.

One can always contact the extension specialist faculty/expert on campus directly for information, often I’ll provide that persons name and contact info on this board, but the system is designed to ideally contact the area extension agent in the parish/county first for assistance, and then rely on the Ph.D. specialist on campus as backup if needed.

The commercial agricultural industry in the state heavily relies on the Cooperative Extension Service for information and assistance, but the typical homeowner isn’t even aware of its existence and the services they provide to the general public - when possible I like inform posters it’s a service out there that one often can take advantage of.

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quote: Walk your lawn with a grocery bag and pull Dallisgrass if it’s there

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Have a 5’ x 5’ square of Dallisgrass from a construction entrance. Is there anything out there that will permanently kill it…. Or should I dig it up and resod. Centipede.

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OeauxMy

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That looks like it might be Black Medic weed - if ronk jumps back in the thread he can likely confirm.

That said, I recommend you take ronks advice and buy a bottle of Celsius and surfactant (spreader sticker) and spray the complete lawn according to label directions along with fertilization amount he recommended.

Be forewarned, the upfront Celsius is expensive at slightly over $100 per bottle (Site One Landscape Supply price, probably higher from other suppliers), but that bottle of herbicide will last 4 to 6 years for a typical size residential lawn so the prorated annual cost is no more than liquid herbicides you can buy at the big box stores, and you can’t use them now anyways b/c they would damage the lawn in this heat.

The surfactant is cheap.

Celsius can be used in the heat of the summer without damaging the lawn grass if you follow the label directions. Celsius is likely the best overall herbicide for lawns available to homeowners.

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TigerFanatic99

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Really like this advice as well. Thank you.

Lawn is smooth enough I believe. Nothing too crazy.

That weed is actually horse herb. I'm very familiar with that because one of my guys sprayed it with msm and the homeowner wanted it as ground cover. I had to plant over 300 of those damn things.

I'd like to see some more pictures of that grass. Craw is right, it isn't St Aug. Rescue is a bit taller and produces a pointy seed head that I'm not seeing in your picture. However, rescue grass does get powdery mildew as it starts to die and I do see powdery mildew in that picture.

IM having issues in SE Texas with Bermuda overtaking my ST augustine.


I Just fertilize a few times a summer. Im new and dumb. Help!

Bottom is horseherb. The grassy weed is still difficult to tell. Does it have any seedheads and is it growing runners or does it originate from a single spot?

It is similar for sure and could be it. Id’ing weed grasses through pictures is very difficult.

100% rescue grass. Where do you live? That should have died off by now.