My neighbors went organic last year, and for some reason their front yard lost all of its grass. The wife called Howard, and he said it could have been some disease brought in on the shoe soles of some of the kids who play there. That plus the drought really made the place look bad. He asked me some questions Sunday, but I'm really not qualified to answer. So I need your help:

1) he's having a sprinkler system installed. What type of heads are preferred? He has quotes for mists & rotors (I believe that's what he called them).

2) He's thinking of having his front yard resodded. I suggested he put down a layer of compost first, then his grass. Is this correct? Should he decide to go with seed, shouldn't he wait 4-6 weeks after applying his corn gluten to put down the seeds? Or broadcast the seeds and when grass begins to emerge, then broadcast his (probably) fertilizer?

I really want his yard to look good; everyone else who has come over from the "dark side" has bragged at how good their yards look. I would really appreciate your help.

Do not apply corn gluten meal at the time the seed is broadcasted!! It will prevent the seeds from germinating.

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Sandi
Texas Certified Nursery Professional
Texas Master Naturalist
Organic gardener
Tree-Hugger
Native Texan

You want to acutally use both. Use your big heads (rotor or impact) to cover larger areas and the pop ups for the smaller areas. While they are installing you should consider placing shrub heads and/or drip lines in your garden/landscaping as well. Make sure that the installer places enough [Heads] to get good uniformed coverage.

What type of ground cover depends on how fast he wants to see results. sodding is faster, seeding takes time.

You don't have to add a layer of compost to your property before sodding or seeding. It helps but is not completely necessary in my opinion.

I added Medina Soil activator and beneficial nem first to help the soil take care of any fireant and grub problems initially. When I placed my sod. I also added compost to the bare areas between the sod and watered deeply and infrequently as recommended on this site. I usually water about 1" deep. I placed a few cups around my yard and timed how long it would take to fill the cups 1" and did this technique for each zone of my sprinkler system then set my timers for each zone accordingly.

Once my grass showed signs of rooting, I used organic fertilizer, lava sand, dried mollasses, texas green sand and cotton bur compost (my favorite compost where needed).

The thing is is that you have to stick with it. People say that organics is very expensive, but I have to disagree. The initial cost is always going to be high no matter what you do. However, once you establish the yard with healthy microbes and water deep and infrequent you eventually just maintain your yard and the price is drastically reduced. Also never bag your clippings and mow high for a thick lawn. This will help choke out weeds.

It took less than one growing season to see results and by the second full growing season I was receiving compliments from neighbors and friends.

It is great that you are helping your neighbor get restarted. God bless you!

I know of only two ways to lose an entire yard of St Aug in one season. The most popular way is to let nature do your watering. St Aug does not go dormant from underwatering, it goes dead. It will not come back once it is dead. But if you have one sprout that lived, it will completely regenerate a lawn at a rate of 10 feet per season. Please help him set up the sprinklers to run on auto on a weekly basis and to get plenty of water down. I'm thinking of an hour in each zone. And I always suggest overlapping the zones by 50% so there can be no dry spots. The impact type sprinklers lose less water to evaporation because the droplets are large. Mist type heads lose water to evap because the drops can be so tiny they drift away and evaporate before hitting the ground.

The second way to lose an entire lawn is to let a disease go rampant without applying corn meal. Had he applied corn meal regularly (on the major federal holidays or more often) he should not have had any problems. This is an area where you can help him keep an eye out.

Compost should go on top, not underneath. Nature ALWAYS works from the top down. If you want results like Hers, try to mimic her techniques as much as is practical. But I would not apply compost at all. It is too expensive. Unless you have had a major chemical spill like a commercial fungicide, baking soda, or sulfur, then your soil microbes are all there. All you need to do is feed them with an organic fertilizer. I like corn meal or corn GLUTEN meal. Keep it simple, especially at first. Corn meal both fertilizes and keeps the fungal disease away, so it is easy to be successful with that.

Now is a poor time for seed. If he wants bermuda, wait until June to seed. If he wants fescue or bluegrass, wait until October to seed. Sod is all you can do successfully at this time. Then he can use CGM on the sod right after installation. If he sods, all the sod has to get put down immediately. Sod sitting on the palatte is drying out and dying.

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David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum