My first question is whether fescue is a good choice for Dallas. Aren't most lawns in Dallas warm season grass? Maybe the trees will provide enough shade for the fescue to do ok.

I'm confused by your description of the soil as clay and sandy. Those are pretty much opposite soil types. Sandy soil tends to absorb water very fast, but not retain it well. Clay soil tends to have trouble absorbing water, but keeps it longer once it gets it in. In both cases, lots of organic matter can help.

If you're planting from seed, fescue will have a hard time making it through the summer if you plant in the spring. Sod will be ok, but if you seed in the spring, you'll probably need to give it a lot of water to get it through the summer.

I would mulch mow the leaves and let them sit. By spring, they'll be mostly decomposed and will help the soil.

Thanks for all of the advice! I did mean that the soil is sandy. The area is pretty dim, not full shade but what I could determine is that the fescue had the best chance of survival. I could not afford either the time or $ to sod the entire area. I guess I could try plugs, or maybe just a small area for now?

I will mulch the leaves and hope for the best.

I don't think fescue comes in plugs. Plugs are used for grasses that spread aggressively and most fescue spreads very slowly if at all.

If you can water it, you may be okay, but there's a good chance that you'll need to overseed next fall.

Fescue won't grow in Dallas. Way too hot and dry.

your best bet is st augustine grass for shady area. You may have to cut down trees to allow at least 4 hours of direct sun on the ground. If not, you would have to consider ground cover like monkeygrass, Ivy, etc that can tolerate such shade.

I would use ordinary mulching mower set at low cutting height to mulch all the leaves into small pieces.

For quick temporary coverage for bare ground to control weeds, soil erosion, etc, I'd go with annual rye. Doesn't make sense to go with expensive fescue that would die anyway during the summer. There's type of fescue called chewing or creeping fescue with supposedly good drought tolerance and can grow in in partial shade but I have no idea if it can be done in Dallas. I've never heard of anyone having success with it.

Can you post a picture or a link and someone here can connect to it.

What are you planning to use the area for? Is it visible from the house or a sitting area?

Thanks for the input. I will try and post some pictures on Saturday. I got my information from the Soil Testing Lab. I tested four areas, but this is for the part that will get the lawn:
PH: 5.1
Conductivity: 28 umho/cm
Nitrate: 4 ppm
Phosphorous: 17 ppm
Potassium: 87 ppm
Calcium: 261 ppm
Magnesium: 50 ppm
Sulfur: 14 ppm
Sodium: 150 ppm.

They provided their recommendation for lawn fertilizer to got those numbers to the appropriate amounts, which included 15 lbs/1000 sq foot of limestone.

After some more due diligence I am leaning towards Palmetto St. Augustine. That will mean plugs (ie $$) but that is probably my best bet. I will try for a section of the area and then if it takes add more the following year. Given the above results, I may just bag and tag the leaves Saturday versus mulch. Their recommendations were not too much in fertilizer so do you agree?

Thanks for everything.

Dallas soil has a pH of 5.1 and it is sandy? That seems puzzling to me. Anyone else think that sounds okay?

Back to something I missed earlier, if you have 250 trees in the yard, digging the trenches for the sprinkler system will be a problem. Then after the lines are in, watering will be a problem trying to get around all the trees.

St Augustine will spread out about 10 feet in all directions in one growing season. You might not need as much as you think if you're willing to take the time to let it fill in.

I don't know about the sandy part of it, but I wouldn't expect to see low pH in the Dallas area unless they get a lot more rain than I thought.

They probably do get much more rain than you think. I know they get a lot more than we do in San Antonio. But if we got more rain our soil would always be 8.5. At least with the dry periods it gives the microbes a chance to acidify the soil down so 7

I forgot that your high pH is created more by the mineral content of the underlying limestone. Here, it has to do with minerals in the irrigation water (which can also cause salinity problems over time) and some other things related to the arid climate. Is the soil in Dallas usually the same limestone as in San Antonio?

First off, don't expect accurate information from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. :) A&M said my soil was clay.

I am right near a creek bed and at the low point in the neighborhood so a lot of run off probably goes through my grassless back yard. I am really stuck with this lawn because of the trees. I am posting a google satellite image of my house (the part in the red bars). In the winter you'd think it was ok...but with the sun beating down from the bottom of the picture, the shade will probably wipe out any sunlight in the backyard.

BTW I tried doing leaves all Saturday and barely made a dent.

As for the front lawn you can see greyish spots, mostly from the large trees near the house that I just took down (roots destroyed it all). So maybe Ill just work on the front lawn.

http://img354.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lawnym3.jpg

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:121324}}

Actually, clay in Dallas area is usually alkaline so Dchall is right because he's a moderator on several lawn forums so he should know one or two thing about Dallas area based on what he has read. I'm surprised to see your clay soil having such low pH. For some reason, I don't buy that at all unless it's purely leaf mold that your trees drop leaves every year and never raked up leading to such low pH. Usually, the only thing that is acidic is rare sandy soil, probably along Trinity River?

There is actually limestone bedrock going through Dallas but I don't know how widespread it is. I live in Midlothian and I sit right on top of limestone rubbles.

Lou:
I just purchased this home (in September) and most of the leaves were still in the trees. At the same time, I was wading through mounds of leaves in the back yard. I dug around and noticed layers and layers of decayed and (fermented? composted) leaves. In fact, the leaves were stratified and my guess is that they had not been picked up in minimum of three years. So my theory, along with yours, is that the leaves sitting on the soil for so long acidified the soil.

If that is the case, do I need to add limestone, or will it "naturally" go back to a normal ph as I am more vigilant about raking? BTW it has been freezing cold here and the wind has been going 25+ MPH..so Im afraid to even see how bad things are back there now!

I'd be inclined not to add any lime since soil in your area tends to be alkaline.

I also wouldn't rake the leaves. I'd mulch mow them to reduce the volume. you can increase the speed of decomposition if you add a nitrogen source. If you're staying organic, you'd need to add about 1000 lbs of soybean meal or alfalfa pellets to get the amount of nitrogen you want for your lawn.

If you use urea, you'd need about 120 lbs. The downside is that it's very easy to burn with urea. You could also use Ammonium sulfate (about 260 lbs). It's more likely to burn than the soybean meal or alfalfa but less likely than urea.

Here's your picture

{{gwi:121325}}
Too bad I can't wrap text around that picture.

Let's go back to the beginning. If you wanted to grow grass under all those trees, I think you're out of luck. There are some ground covers that might work, but regular grass that needs sunlight won't work. If you can thin out the tree canopies, you might be able to grow St Augustine back there. It will never be dense, but it will be green.

I do things organically so I normally only see down that one path. If it were my yard I would fluff up the layers of leaves with a rake being careful not to get down into the soil with the rake. Then I would let the leaves dry out so that, hopefully, I could blow them away from the soil where they are out into the grass. There I would chop them up with a rotary lawn mower/mulcher.

I don't know if bpgreen knows it but ammonium sulfate is used to acidify flower beds, so that's not going to help under your trees. It could be that leaving the leaves alone is the "highest and best use" of that land back there. Let it go back to nature. Another option is to build a deck or patio that you can blow the leaves off of when they fall. Then that becomes a chore. What about concentrating on acid loving plants?? How about some nice blueberries!

So on to your front yard. It looks like your house was placed in the middle of a forest that is at least many generations old. If that is the case, then all of your soil may very well be very acidic and require treatments to bring it back down. Being organic I'm going to suggest some things that you may not agree with, but here goes.

Apply molasses to the lawn in front. I NEVER suggest this to anyone and quite often argue against it, but this is a special case. Molasses never hurts, but it often doesn't do much of anything. In Dallas everyone seems to swear it works for them. They use what is called 'dry molasses,' which is wet molasses sprayed onto agricultural waste materials like corn cobs or rice hulls. If you use it, get enough to cover the entire area and use it all at once. After you open the bag the molasses starts to absorb moisture from the air and it solidifies. So use it all if you use it at all.

After (or before) the molasses I would use something like alfalfa pellets from the feed store. The application rate is 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can use more if you want. Now is not the ideal time to buy alfalfa because if you don't use all of it, by spring it will have bugs in it. I still use it when it is buggy, but there is an extra 'ick' factor in applying. I just scoop the pellets up in a coffee can and scatter them by hand. It doesn't take long. After you scatter the pellets they need to be moistened but not soaked. When they get wet the pellet "glue" dissolves and the birds can't swoop in and remove them. Any organic fertilizer or corn meal, soy bean meal, cottonseed meal, or even used coffee grounds would work the same. You might wait until mid March to do all this. Then on Memorial Day, do it again.

What this will do is develop a healthy population of beneficial soil microbes that hopefully will start to change the pH of your soil back toward neutral. I am thinking the previous owners were not on an organic plan. If they used chemicals like fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides, then your soil microbes have suffered and cannot help you. By feeding alfalfa (or the others) to the microbes they will recover. The molasses is a carbohydrate boost that the microbes need to repopulate. The alfalfa is a protein source.

What you should see is a darkening of the green color of the grass. Being an organic fertilizer, it will not give you overnight results. It will give you results in three weeks. If you decide to do an organic plan, then you will have to figure out a schedule so that you apply the fertilizer three weeks before the grass needs it. I fertilize on the national holidays starting with Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. They are just easy for me to remember and I'm not a nut about having the best looking lawn in the neighborhood. I often do have a good looking lawn, but not because I try real hard at it. Mine is never a below average looking lawn on this plan.

After looking at your pictures I assume you wanted to put irrigation into the front yard. I still think the back yard is out of the question for an in-the-ground system due to roots. Was there still a question about a system for the front?

"I don't know if bpgreen knows it but ammonium sulfate is used to acidify flower beds, so that's not going to help under your trees."

I've read that, but I haven't put much stock in it because it never seemed to help lower my soil's pH back when I used it.

I actually started out recommending a more organic approach until I did the math on the amount that would be needed and thought that might be a bit daunting. I was using 20 lbs per 1k sq ft and came up with almost 1100 lbs.

I would just leave the leaves alone back there and just enjoy the beauty of the trees. Warning... if you have Post Oak, I wouldn't do a thing at all esp removing the leaves and making changes. They are extremely sensitive to changes and will start declining rapidly. If the pH is truly that acidic, I'd try azaleas, sorta turning back there into arboretum type filled with nice plants like japanese maples if you want to go into that stuff.
{{gwi:121326}}SFA Arboretum 12-8-2007

I am still skeptical about pH so why don't you send a sample to Texas Soil and Plant lab? I think it is a better than A&M which had problems in the past so I'm not sure how accurate A&M tests are these days.

Here is a link that might be useful: Texas Plant and Soil Lab

Thank you for all of the help! bpgreen, you are right. I have little desire to back a pickup tuck full of molasses and decayed brussell sprouts onto my entire lawn. But I think the general consensus is that, right now, my back lawn is probably not going to look like a golf course. So, for now, I will enjoy the trees and focus on my front lawn. For that I will take the organic approach. I am not fond of seeing my children frollicking in anything other than edible fertilizer so...

I will, in February, pour about 300 lbs or so of molasses on my front lawn. I did some reading and found that molasses also repels fireants so I'm more interested. I'll then do the alfalfa/soybean and see what comes of it. The blueberries and azaleas sound awesome, I am already planning on persimmons, peaches, and other fruit trees in the yard so that would be something to think about.

Since there is some worry that the PH value is wrong I will send a sample to Texas Plant and Soil Lab...just as a check.

Finally, in the front lawn (which gets tons of sun) there are splotches of grey (dead) grass. I mean grey as in almost white. Should I remove this dead grass so new stuff can come in?

After all of these posts I am pretty excited for the spring. The neighbor is the community "Best Lawn in the Area" winner and he told me that the previous homeowner never watered the grass. Never. 5 years. My goal is to wrest the award from the neighbor in 2-3 years and I plan to do it with all of this help. thanks!

I think liquid molasses is a lot cheaper than dry type. Co-op farm sells them at pretty low price if you can find it. You could use a 5g bucket and fill it with 1g of molasses and dilute it with 4g of water. You'd hook some kind of siphon to the faucet where it'd suck up molasses solution from the bucket into the sprinkler. Another added benefit from molasses is that it may help control weed to a degree. It helps microbes multiply fast and suck up excess nitrate (a form of nitrogen) in the soil leading to lower level of nitrate where weeds would not thrive at. After 2-3 years, it probably won't work anymore with much improved soil.

I am hesitant to recommend Palmetto st augustine because mine got hit with SADV. That's a shame because it was a nice looking one. Raleigh variety is commonly recommended but it is not very hardy at all despite SADV resistant. I have 'Sapphire' that seems to be pretty good but not much is known about it. So far, SADV hasn't infected it. 'Floratam' is very hardy in every area except for cold tolerance (got it delivered by accident with palmetto and it took over the backyard). So far, it seems to be doing pretty good up here as it isn't recommended this far up north because of risk of winter damage. You would have to get below 10*F weather for that to happen though and it has been a while, maybe since 1989 that I know of. Dchall said st Augustine spread out 10 feet?? I would only believe that if it's floratam or sapphire with fertilizer... Have you looked at Palisades zoysia? Pricey but may be worth it. Looking at your front lawn... I would plant nice trees along the street for added privacy like shantung maples for their fall color (Metromaples.com) with evergreen shrubs around them like holly, abelia, wax myrtles, etc.

I noticed that there's a tree canopy over the pool. Don't you think that you could take that tree out? You'd have a nice small backyard around the pool? In my opinion, pool and trees don't mix very well.

The neighbor ... told me that the previous homeowner never watered the grass. Never. 5 years.
This is important information (you were holding out on us ;-). This hints strongly that he let nature takeover in the back, too.

The gray grass in the front is dead. That's what dead grass looks like. You don't need to remove it. If you can find a garden center with some Floratam St Augustine, you could put a couple pieces of that in come spring time (Lou can you post a picture or two showing the Floratam coloration so he/we can recognize it when we see it?). You could remove the grass where you place the flats only if you aren't going to completely cover the area. If you 'checkerboard' the grass in, you'll have high and low spots which make mowing a spectator sport. If you only put in a few flats, then hoe out the areas where the new grass goes to lower it about 3/4 inch to the depth of the soil that comes with the new grass. When I said St Aug would spread 10 feet in all directions, I'm talking about runners, not thick, dense turf. But in 2 years you should have pretty nice turf. I easily get 10 feet of runners into my wife's flower beds every year (snicker). Water is the important thing to us. Rain is 10x better for our grass than tap water. Of course mine gets fertilizer on the national holidays.

Liquid molasses is much cheaper by any measure. To make 50 pounds of dry molasses they spray 5 pounds of molasses over 45 pounds of fluff. Five pounds of molasses costs them about $0.50 and the fluff costs nothing. The application rate for liquid is 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. At the garden centers it's about $15 per gallon. At a farm co-op it could be as little as $1.00 per gallon if you bring your own bottle (I use a laundry soap bottle). Yes fireants do not like sugar so spraying sugar over the entire lawn will keep them away.

If you are going for the neighborhood gold you can easily do that with an organic plan. Your neighbor may not believe that, but I've seen it done and you will have spent only a fraction of what he spends to make his look that good. Water deeply and infrequently to keep weeds away and develop a deep root system; mulch mow at the mower's highest setting to keep weeds away and to develop a very deep root system; (am I sounding redundant?); and fertilize on the national holidays.

{{gwi:121327}}

Very easy to identify Floratam. It has thick purple reddish stolons. Very easy to establish. It is not sold in Dallas area though. You'd either order plugs from www.lawnplugs.com or drive down to Turfgrass America in Conroe for left over pieces of Floratam (call in advance for that) or drive to Houston to a garden center that sells them by piece. Despite its weak cold tolerance, you can help improve its survival by properly watering, mowing high, etc. A shot of seaweed liquid before cold weather comes may help too. I had a severe cold snap in 2005 when it got down to 14*F from 90*F and didn't really cause a lot of damage to Floratam. Proper maintenance is very important.

Interesting color. That's the color the blades will turn in the winter on common St Aug.

Remind me to invite you all over for some home made beer. Which makes me think that there might be some secondary use for my chocolatey malted barley extract. Its kinda like molasses right? :)

Here's a picture of the dead grass:
[URL=http://img171.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lawn2zt5.jpg][IMG]http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/746/lawn2zt5.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Is it St. Augustine Floratam or St. Augustin Dead?

And another of some of the back yard:
[URL=http://img171.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lawn3lu1.jpg][IMG]http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/5144/lawn3lu1.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

The trees look bare without leaves of course, but come spring I'm imagining a Spooky Dark Forest Effect.

Finally, you asked me to cut down the "tree" near the pool. It is actually a cluster of about 13 trees, and yes, some of them are on notice.

[URL=http://img123.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lawn8uk7.jpg][IMG]http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/3443/lawn8uk7.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

They are still somewhat green after 15 nights of 32*F or colder. Palmetto is struggling right now probably from the effects of SADV. The color is distinct. More of blue-green color. You could easily spot that out of Palmetto lawn which is pure green when not infected by SADV. Sapphire is not that bad. In fact, I like it a lot. Maybe a little bit too aggressive though but it sure fills in very fast when you need it NOW. I'd give both Floratam and Sapphire a try for plugging if you can't afford several pallets for full coverage. They will fill in before year is over after 5 months at 5 feet spacing.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sapphire growth...

Yep. That's st augustine but I don't know which variety. 3 of 4 past years in a drought will kill any grass if not watered at all.

Here's what my lawn looks like when maintained properly. I water 2-3 times a month during hot weather now after 3 years of organic program. You may have to water more often at first as you improve the soil over time. If you have a good amount of clay topsoil, you may only water twice a month at the most in a few years. {{gwi:79147}}Before and After Lawn

I love that first picture, Lou. For anyone who wants to know what limestone soil looks like, that's it. I call it limestone rubble.

Barten, here is your post again with the images embedded. You used bb code. To post here you have to use HTML.

Here's a picture of the dead grass:

{{gwi:121328}}

Is it St. Augustine Floratam or St. Augustin Dead?

And another of some of the back yard:
{{gwi:121329}}

The trees look bare without leaves of course, but come spring I'm imagining a Spooky Dark Forest Effect.

Finally, you asked me to cut down the "tree" near the pool. It is actually a cluster of about 13 trees, and yes, some of them are on notice.

{{gwi:121330}}

I hope this isn't considered bumping but I thought I'd give an update on my lawn. I have decided not to focus to much on the back yard this year, mostly the front which includes the main lawn.

The lawn is about 10,000 square feet and St. Augustine, faces south with no shade.

2 weeks ago, I put down about 120 lbs of dry molasses (molasses over soy bean, 42% sugar). I then watered it down.
It was kind of cool because when I want out at night it smelled like a distillery!

Last week I put down 120 lbs of an organic fertilizer mix (chicken manure, kelp, etc) and about 80 lbs of earthworm casings. I watered it down and holy moly, the smell was awful. Someone left that part out.

This weekend I put an inch of water down.

The weather hasn't really gotten too warm here in TX so I will wait 2 weeks before my next "experiment". I am going to put a bag of compost in a new 30 gallon trash bin with some de-chlorinated water and molasses. I'm going to aerate it for a couple of days and then use a super sump pump to water the lawn with the tea.

The week after that I'll try the beneficial nematode rout. The soil analysis I had done on the current lawn showed low levels of nitrogen, so I half feel I need more fertilizer, maybe cottonseed?

Let's see what happens!