rye grass and soil

[raza]

we have a small front yard about 30 ft x 20 ft, some almost bare, some with st. augustine dug up the bare about six inches, also augustine portion but less deep, hand threw lots of annual rye seed over the bare portion, watered it and covered back with scotts topping soil, tamped it fairly hard did the same with the augustine portion, that was more of overseeding than fresh seeding

we are in houston and this was done about eight days ago since then it has been raining quite a bit here, two days ago I saw beautiful green rye spring up in about half, the other half which was either bare or very little vegetation, has almost nothing to show

when grass is on the way and you dig a little with your finger, you can see other grass closeby also readying to show up, but in this other portion I dug a little with my finger at a couple of locations, but nothing nothing, except the smell of stagnant water

what did I do wrong and what should I do now?

thank you very much

[rainbowgardener]

Smell of stagnant water is the clue, with all the rain. For some reason that section is not draining well enough and the water is sitting there. Then the seeds and roots just rot out.

I don't know if the soil might be different there or the slope, or what, but it sounds like a drainage issue.

[raza]

thank you for responding and I think you are right

what should I do I mean how do I drain this if I dig how much then how do I force the water out I also think that this maybe going back to much earlier than the recent rains because no matter what I sow or plant in this particular area st augustine bermuda rye do not come up in any healthy way

please give a permanent solution

best regards
aamir

[rainbowgardener]

You need to do something to get the drainage better. It's hard to give any solution without knowing what is causing the problem. What is different between that area and the area that grows well? Is it shadier? Is the soil different? Is it sloped or bowl shaped? Have you dug down to see what the lower layers are like? Sometimes you can have decent soil down a few inches, but under that is a layer of hardpan or something that is pretty impermeable. That makes a kind of bathtub effect where the water sits on top of it.

You might need to re-grade to correct slope or put a little slope in. You might need to loosen and aerate your soil. You might need to scrape the topsoil off and punch holes down in the lower layer with a pitchfork and then put the topsoil back. It would probably help to mix in a bunch of organic compost in to your soil to help with drainage and maybe a bit of perlite.

As I said, hard to make any suggestions without knowing what is causing the problem.

[Dillbert]

>>permanent solution

the bad news:
St Augustine / Zoysia / similar grasses are - short of destruction by ground zero nuclear weapons - are not going to go away. they spread / propagate / survive by rhizome roots and "digging them out" is short of extreme - as in excavate to 3-6 feet deep and removing all soil from the property - the stuff is there to stay. if you miss excavating / removing even the tiniest bits of roots, "they'll be back . . . "

the stagnant water / bad smell is without question an indication of poor drainage. regrets that's really not the basic issue if you want to totally get rid of the St Augustine.

as far as I know, there's not a selective vegetation killer that will knock out the St Augustine and allow other grasses to take over. even a "kill everything green" type of herbicide (RoundUp, etc.) may likely not get all of the root system. meaning one would have to stay "on top" of the situation and "kill everything" as soon as any of it "reappears" - with subsequent reseeding.

sorry for the negativity - but eliminating those types of grasses is exceedingly difficult.

[rainbowgardener]

Is that what you wanted, raza, to eliminate the St Augustine? I thought you just wanted to grow grass in the bare spot?

[raza]

thank you! but I definitely mis-communicated

1. the portion that is a little st. augustine and I have over seeded with rye, is not the problem at all

2. we are talking about the portion that remains about bare no matter what I do do you know how I could get rid of the water-logging in that area, which has been there for sometime, even before the rains, something that I could do with manual help, but not quite digging my yard about 4 ft and replacing all of it with new topping soil

Regards
Aamir

[rainbowgardener]

2. we are talking about the portion that remains about bare no matter what I do do you know how I could get rid of the water-logging in that area, which has been there for sometime, even before the rains, something that I could do with manual help, but not quite digging my yard about 4 ft and replacing all of it with new topping soil

Regards
Aamir

You had my answers about that above. What do you know about why it is so waterlogged? The why determines the what to do about it.