[Confederate Lawn]

Hi y'all,
I'm brand new to the site and I have some specific questions to ask about my lawn in my part of the country. I'm in the Charleston, SC area (Inland Lowcountry) and have a mix of zoysia, St. Aug. and (mostly) centipede. From a distance, everything looks grassy and green. but on closer look, it's all just grassy and broad leaf weeds. I cannot find any grass popping up in between most places. I'll have to take a picture this afternoon to show what I mean. These are spots that had grass previously (last summer) but we got about 8" of snow this winter which is not a common thing for my area. Is my grass dead? I am determined this year to dominate my cul de sac with the best front yard grass.

I haven't done any pre emergence or weed control but I did put down a big bag of milorganite a day before it rained and mowed. I also did some de-thatching in some areas but not the whole yard due to the fact that there was just weeds and dirt. I have tons of nut grass, kylinga, poa, clover, dandelion, dollar weed, crab grass and a thousand other varieties of weeds all over. I don't want to have to kill everything and start all over but I want to know if my lawn is salvageable. If not I can get to work sooner than later to kill everything off and start all over. Based on my climate and grass type when can I expect to see some signs of grass life? Like I said before, I've had a pretty nice lawn in past years without any maintenance but I have a feeling (and I'm not an expert) the grass I had that was dormant is now dead and will not grow. If someone with some knowledge of my area and grass type can chime in with a plan of action, that would be amazing!! and very helpful. I can provide pictures this evening or tomorrow once I get home from work.

 

[gijoe4500]

Any grass you have should be greening up already. Definitely post pictures of what you are starting with, and you can get advice from there. Also, how large of an area are you trying to maintain? If it is "just shy of 1 acre" like you have listed, you'll get different recommendations than if its just 1000sq ft.

 

[Greendoc]

Best advice is to pick one grass and direct your maintenance practices towards that one. I can tell you that unless a reel mower is in your future, the Zoysia has got to go. Both Centipede and St Augustine can be kept with the mower you have. I would start with some soil testing/analysis before deciding which grass you want to keep. St Augustine is not as picky about its soil.

 

[Colonel K0rn]

In all honesty, when your yard is over 65-75% "crap", you should take a look at doing a renovation. You're going to be fighting weeds for a 2-3 year time frame if you're trying to nurse a dead lawn back to life, and the cost of some of the chemicals that are going to be needed are going to far outweigh the cost of starting over. I realize that the size of your yard might be a detractor, but if you're just doing your front yard, you could have a well-established bermuda yard by the end of the summer, even if you did it from seed. If I were to do my renovation over again, I would have be starting my glyphosate applications 2 weeks ago. Take this from someone who had 60% of his late-summer renovation die to the winter and lack of growing time for establishment. Also the cost and time to seed my yard was a fraction of the cost to go with sod, so don't write off a complete renovation.

Do you have irrigation, and a preference for any grass type? How often do you want/willing to mow?

 

[Confederate Lawn]

Thanks for the wise words. I don't mind mowing a couple times a week. I like to mow. And the front part of my yard is about 10,000 sqft so about a quarter of my yard is what I'm focusing on. the back is a huge mix of weeds and grass. with a lot of trees. also attached are some pics of I'd say my worst areas. More than half of my front yard is probably not as bad as these photos.

 

[Topcat]

Welcome to the forum. It is very hard to say if you have something under the weeds that is salvageable by just looking at the pics. St Aug does not lose a lot of the green color over the winter the way that centipede does. I think I see some dormant centipede in the pics. Before calling it a loss, I'd say give it more time to come out of dormancy. I live in the Charleston area as well, and the neighbors around me with centipede still has brown grass with just a hint of green up. The warm days and huge temp swings at night are making it a little more challenging for the soil to come up to and maintain a constant temp warm enough to bring the grasses all the way out of dormancy.

I'd use the pre emergent asap, then follow up with a post emergent.

 

[Confederate Lawn]

@Topcat Can you explain the pre and post emergant thing to me? I don't know too much about it. I put down Milorganite about 7 days ago. And still haven't done the lawn safe weed killer..

 

[gijoe4500]

@Topcat Can you explain the pre and post emergant thing to me? I don't know too much about it. I put down Milorganite about 7 days ago. And still haven't done the lawn safe weed killer..

Pre-emergent is what you put down before the weed seeds have germinated. It stops them from growing before they even start.

Post-emergent is what you put on the weeds to kill them after they have started growing.

A good weed control program will have both. If you time your pre-emergent applications right, you won't have many weeds that do grow, and you can spot treat them, as needed.

 

[Confederate Lawn]

@Topcat Can you explain the pre and post emergant thing to me? I don't know too much about it. I put down Milorganite about 7 days ago. And still haven't done the lawn safe weed killer..

A good weed control program will have both. If you time your pre-emergent applications right, you won't have many weeds that do grow, and you can spot treat them, as needed.

Do you have any recommendations for pre and post emergent brands? also good spot killer brand?

 

[gijoe4500]

@Topcat Can you explain the pre and post emergant thing to me? I don't know too much about it. I put down Milorganite about 7 days ago. And still haven't done the lawn safe weed killer..

A good weed control program will have both. If you time your pre-emergent applications right, you won't have many weeds that do grow, and you can spot treat them, as needed.

Do you have any recommendations for pre and post emergent brands? also good spot killer brand?

It is going to be based almost entirely on what kind of grass you decide to grow. And the brand doesn't matter as much as the chemicals inside do.

Right now, I'm using Dithiopyr as my pre-emergent, and Celsius as my post-emergent for bermuda and zoysia lawns.

 

[Topcat]

I use Blindside during cooler weather, then I use Celsius during the summer months if and as required as my post emergent. I use Prodiamine as my pre emergent.

 

[Rockinar]

Any pictures of what you think is grass? I just see all weeds.

 

[Confederate Lawn]

Any pictures of what you think is grass? A just see all weeds.

I'll take some more pics of the areas that actually have some grass amongst the crap weeds.

 

[Confederate Lawn]

Here is what about 65-70% of the yard is. Like I said I think a mix between centipede and st Augustine? Not as savvy as most of y'all. Let me know what you think

 

[gijoe4500]

Go get some weed b gon. Spray the yard, and see what survives. You'll have a better idea of what you're working with then

 

[Spammage]

@Confederate Lawn I want to say that might be St Augustine, and of all the turf grasses that is the most likely guess, but I'm not sure if it is.

I too would spray a herbicide (preferably Celsius) and see what survives to get a better assessment.

edit - @Colonel K0rn does this look like carpetgrass?

 

[Colonel K0rn]

@Confederate Lawn I want to say that might be St Augustine, and of all the turf grasses that is the most likely guess, but I'm not sure if it is.

I too would spray a herbicide (preferably Celsius) and see what survives to get a better assessment.

edit - @Colonel K0rn does this look like carpetgrass?

It does look like carpet grass, but the best way to tell it apart from Centipede is the purple base at the node on the stolon. It has a purplish hue, where the centipede is whitish-green. Only way to tell is if OP can recall seeing any of the seed heads from the grass if it's gone unmowed for a while. Centipede won't throw up the same-looking seed heads.

Carpet Grass ID

 

[Confederate Lawn]

This is the majority of what I'm seeing. Can anyone confirm for sure what this grass type is?

 

[Topcat]

Look like Bermuda to me - but I have to admit, I am not sure I've ever seen Carpet Grass. Experts will have to Chime in. @Colonel K0rn accidentally killed off a large portion of Carpet Grass so he can offer first hand insight.

 

[Colonel K0rn]

@Confederate Lawn after zooming in on your pictures, I would 100% be willing to bet you a steak dinner that you've got Carpet Grass.

And dollar weed.