Tips and Suggestions for my Lawn

[Lawnapprentice]

Hi Everyone,
I am from Texas, recently moved into a home and have taken a large interest in lawn care and maintenance. Unfortunately my lawn isn't the greatest. I come here in hopes of tips and suggestions on how to tackle my struggling lawn.

I have no knowledge of lawncare besides the tidbits of info I have come across over the weeks of reading. My lawn is a yellowish green and I really can't pinpoint what is causing the problems. From the pictures I will post, I think Cinch bugs from my neighbors yard may have migrated over to mine. Other than that, I don't know what else can account for my problem.

[img]https://img214.imageshack.us/img214/9091/img0175i.jpg[/img]

[img]https://img248.imageshack.us/img248/4222/img0177k.jpg[/img]

[img]https://img266.imageshack.us/img266/5167/img0176v.jpg[/img]

[img]https://img682.imageshack.us/img682/4834/img0178.jpg[/img]

A little background on how I do take care of my lawn, is I mow tall and don't bag my clippings. I watered my lawn for summer accordingly and have toned it down since it has gotten cooler. I water early morning around 5am to make sure that the water won't stand overnight possibly causing fungus.

I understand it's fall, but my grass has been consistently in that condition since I have moved in early spring. I also layed down some Scotts fertilizer when I moved in and it didn't seem to do anything.


ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED!

[tomf]

Hard to tell from just a photo, is it getting watered, looks like heat damage. Or lack of iron but then some of it is green.

[Lawnapprentice]

Yes, I do water my lawn. I showed the same photos to my co-worker and he said it looked like over watering?


Any other help would be appreciated.

[tomf]

One inch per week is all your lawn needs are you putting more than that on it? Do you use a cup placed on your lawn to see how much water you're using? You may try using an iron based fertilizer like Ironite. You may try getting a soil PH test kit and see if your PH is off and then adjust for that. If you have moss it may be on the acid side. If you have a lot of thatch in your lawn you may be over fertilizing and need to dethatch your lawn. Also using to much weed and feed can kill your lawn even to much firtilizer can also. It would be easier to know if I could look real close to the lawn.

[Lawnapprentice]

Yes, I did use that cup trick to see how long I should set my sprinklers per zone to accumulate roughly an inch.

From the photos, why do you suggest an iron based fertilizer?

I'll try and buy a pH kit and see where that takes me.

Will close up photos help you?

And on another note, I went to a garden/hardware store and asked them for opinions. They recommended a fungus killer. Not really sure where they are getting that from unless they are just trying to push product.

Thanks for the help.

[tomf]

Iron helps green things up, it may help. You may also have poor soil, do you have a lot of clay? You may have a fungus who knows it may be worth trying.

[steveatzoysia]

Testing your pH is really a good place to start if you are having problems. I noticed you said you were thinking about buying a pH kit; I would suggest you do this. Once you know about your soil, you can add specific nutrients to help better your soil.