For April through June the section that I replanted was beautiful; thick, green and growing nicely (see the picture) but over the last three weeks I've seen more and more of it slowly dying; at first it was just a few blades in between and the rest was pretty health. Now there's a lot of it that's withered and laying flat to the ground and a some of the rest looks sickly.

I've been fertilizing about every three weeks with something I bought at Home Depo called Lesco Professional Turf Fertilizer 24-0-11 and after June when we started getting less rain I kept it watered every night.

I have to say that between seed, fertilizer and water that I've probably invested over $300 in this one little section and I'd rather not see to die completely. Does anyone have any insight into what could possibly be going wrong here?

Thanks,

- Norm

You are getting some very poor advice. At every turn, you are going the opposite direction you should go. If you are lucky, your grass is only going dormant from the summer heat. If so, keep watering but not nearly so often.

First you seeded in the spring. Spring seeded grass can only live through a summer if the summer is cloudy and you get rain weekly. That has not been the situation this summer. The little roots you have on the grass are too tender and too close to the surface to survive. So what you are seeing would be considered normal for a year like this one.

Chemical fertilizer should be applied one time in late spring and then not again until Labor Day or so. The salts in the chemicals during the summer stress the roots of even established lawns. The chemicals also force the grass to grow in the summer heat when it should be trying to go dormant. Organic fertilizer may be used at any time in the summer, but you are, again, forcing growth where you may not want to.

You are going the wrong way with your watering. You were probably watering too frequently to begin with. Once your lawn was established in April, you should have backed off on watering frequency and increased the duration. Normally in April you would be water only one time. In the summer you need to increase the frequency to once per week. What this does is encourage deep rooting which can withstand periods of heat and drought. You have short little roots which can withstand neither. And do not water at night unless you are forced to by local watering ordinances. Sure it rains at night but don't tempt fate. It seems to be better to water in the early morning so the blades of grass can dry off and not develop disease.

First thing to do is stop mowing. Tall grass grows deeper roots and can withstand the heat and drought better. When the heat breaks or you get rain, you can mow at the mower's highest setting.

Secondly, back off on watering. If the grass is dead, you cannot water it back to life. If the grass is dormant, you might rot the tops of the plant with all the water. Just let it be dormant or dead until the heat breaks. Water once per week. Water about an inch when you water. Measure one inch with cat food or tuna cans places all around the yard. Different watering systems water much differently. Yours will likely put out an inch of water between 20 minutes and 8 hours. That seems to be the range I've seen posted around the forums. It is best to apply one inch per week in the hottest heat of summer and one inch per month in the cooler months. Apply the full inch all at one time. Use that as a starting point. One inch may not be enough for some dry spots and it may be too much for some shady spots. The idea of waiting between watering is to allow the surface of the soil to dry completely. The deep roots need to be moist, not the surface.

Plan for another renovation this fall. Fall is the time to renovate because the summer weeds are dying out. The grass will have time to develop deep roots before the summer of 2013 and you should have a much better year. If you decide to do that, please post your ideas here for that project. There are some major mistakes you can avoid by discussing it first.

When you say plant in the fall, when exactly is that? August, September? You say "Fall is the time to renovate because the summer weeds are dying out", here in NJ my weeds hang around longer than the grass does in the fall and once leaves start to fall it's usually too wet and there are too many leaves on the ground for grass to grow so really there's only the month of September.

Another problem that I have is that I'm one of the few people on the block that actually takes care of their lawn; my direct neighbors do no lawn care at all and their lawns are a mass of clover, dandelions, nutsedge, foxtail and other assorted weeds. As a consequence I have to use more weed killer than I would otherwise like to keep the weeds at bay. In order to plant new grass I'd have to stop putting down weed killer three or four weeks before I plant since the weed killer keeps grass seed from germinating.

What do you think?

Thanks,

- Norm

It ain't called The Garden State for nothin'.

Try to put the weeds out of your mind while you are renovating. You can deal with them once the grass is right.

Grass follows a different calendar than we do. It does not know whether it is August or Sept. Start your renovation when the summer heat breaks and the evening temps fall off. That might be late August for you depending on how close to the shore you live. If you are back toward PA, it might be mid to late Sept. That is the time to jump into action. Getting it done then will maximize the amount of time the grass has to become established before winter.

The reason you have so many weeds is you are doing all your management wrong. You are watering, mowing, AND fertilizing wrong. That's the trifecta.

Stop mowing for now. When the heat or drought breaks, go back to normal mowing (high).
Fix your watering as outlined above.
If you feel the need to put something on the grass, put alfalfa pellets (rabbit food) on at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Do that now and 3 weeks from now. Don't expect immediate cure but the alfalfa will go a long way to helping your soil recover.

Just for my own curiosity, what does the alfalfa pellets do? I tried both Home Depo and Lowes and it's not something they carry; I called the local pet food store and the biggest they have is 10lbs for $18.99 but they're going to see if they can order me a 50lb bag.

I'm trying to put the weeds out of my mind but I'm having a real problem this year with nutsedge; it's really choking parts of my lawn. Ortho Weed & Crabgrass killer and Bayer Weed & Crabgrass killer won't touch it and the only thing I've found that seems to work is Ortho nutsedge killer and it appears to only come in a premixed Windex sized spray for $6.50; I've been buying four at a time and pouring them into my sprayer and using that but there are two problems with it; first the nutsedge dies but then within two weeks there's more growing back; second the nutsedge killer turns some of my grass brown and some comes back but the rest appears dead. What else can I use to try and get rid of this really nuisance weed?

Thanks,

- Norm