Looks great! How do you set the chopped stone? I see they’re not dry laid...what’s the best way to keep mortar (between stones) from breaking apart?

I only use Maximizer as my footer concrete and put 3/8" rebar in the footer. The footer is the key to keeping your stone in place.

You will sometimes have small fissures/cracks but the mortar will stay in place. Only use Type S mortar.

Thanks! Those all look awesome!

Honestly you should probably call in a spray and pray company and have them blanket spray some initial treatments. Either you have a ton of shade not allowing enough sun even for the St. Aug or a serious fungus issue. Or a combo thinning out your St. Aug allowing for very high weed pressure to move in. I would research a few companies, don't use tru green. Use a good local independent that only treats lawns for weeds, insects, fungus, etc.Meet with them and see what their diagnosis is. I would also ask for the specific list of products they plan on using. Have them do a couple treatments to get it under control and then you can take over and maintain it yourself with a religious program.

They do fine in clay. I have plenty in my clay. With you mowing higher you probably just don't see them when they surface sometimes, or see their dodo mounds. .

Awesome work!

Nice. Real nice..

I've spent the last hour at work catching up reading the prior 12 pages. Great info fellas. I had my pool filled in late April and they backfilled with clay that has become really hard since it stopped raining. Bermuda sod was laid right before the weeks of rain and sod was doing great in most spots. Should I aerate now or is the lawn still too new? Or shouldn't do it in summer? I haven't done much to it besides mow and I put down some of the Sta-green Texas turf fertilizer last Friday. Mowing higher than I prefer but there a lot of high spots that are going to require some work to get it level

Just my opinion but I wouldn't aerate this year. You mention you have a lot spots that need work to get level. I would aerate next year when you plan on leveling and top dress the area with mason sand to fill the core holes back with. It wouldn't be a bad idea to put a wetting agent down. Cheapest way to go is plan dawn dish soap. Don't get the antibacterial one. Get a ortho hose end sprayer. Put 4oz of dawn in there and top it with water. Spray that evenly as possible over 1000sq feet. Then water that in real good.

Sta Green is a 15-5-10. Depending on how much you applied you're good for 4-6 weeks. I would bump the next app to a 13-13-13 to get down a little more Phosphorus for the new roots. Make sure your watering is on point and you're getting down enough. Tuna can water test the area or put out some rain gauges so you know how much water you're getting down. I would get down an app of scotts disease ex now and in a couple weeks go with Bio Advance hose end.

Thanks. Just put some disease ex down. I went out of town for a week and lost some color in spots due to not having a sprinkler system on it. Hindsight it probably is some disease too but that didn't cross my mind.

My house sits on a little over an acre. The rest of it is a mix of native and some St. Augustine that the previous owners put down. I haven't been doing much with it since I've lived here the last 7 years. Just the occasional weed&feed and mow. Wanting to get this little 4k sqft portion of the back yard looking pristine though to practice ball with my kids. Thanks for the all the info

Grey leaf spot pressure in St Aug is increasing quickly. You might google some pics of it and see if that is what you have. If so do not apply any more fertilizer until you get it under control. Nitrogen in fertilizers feed the GLS and it will get worse. .

https://www.greencastonline.com/tools/pestoutlooks.aspx

Azoxystrobin + Propiconazole combo is your go to. Which is the Scotts and the Bio Advance. If you do have it or any other disease apply the fungicides at the curative rate. It's on the label. Basically If the Scotts bag say it covers 5000sq ft at the preventative rate. The curative rate would be one bag for every 2500sq feet. Use double the amount.

https://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/diseases-in-turf/gray-leaf-spot-in-turf/

Thanks Derek this is a very good informative thread. I too have had issues with my front St Augustine lawn the last few years. It is normally awesome until late summer then some major disease issues. Looks bad by fall then takes forever to fill back in for spring/early summer. I have used a lawn company to do the grub treatment. I have started treating it with Scotts DiseaseEX in hopes to prevent it this year. I will also try to BioAdvanced later this month and try to break the disease cycle.

I think my backyard may be hopeless I have 2 large trees, one Red Oak and a Pistache that have completely canopied over most of the yard. I have maybe 60% decent grass coverage then the rest is very sparse. I have used Scotts Turf Builder would it be better to use something with a different ratio for more growth?

Seems a lot in my neighborhood are having their lawns redone using Zoysia Pallisades they look very nice but that is quite a costly upfront investment. I have considered it but would prefer to treat what I have and make it work if possible.

I don't mean this as a knock at the Zoysia guys at all. Zoysia ia a really nice grass. But it is being pushed hard in DFW right now. To the point it's getting to be a look at me I have Zoysia status symbol. It will be interesting to see how it plays out the next 10yrs for the avg home owner that doesn't cater to it. It is disease and nematode prone. I think you will be able to get your St Aug in shape. If there is any tree trimming that can be done to help open the canopy that would be great.

1st. Go to tractor supply. Get a bag of pelletized sulfur. The brand is Tiger 90. If for some reason they don’t have that. Get the martin brand at lowes. Spread it out at 5lbs per 1000sq feet. And water it well. Save the rest to use next year. 5lbs per 1000 in April and July or August. This helps to fight your high soil Ph.

Fertilizer. I’ll give you a couple options, Without a soil test I would prefer a more balanced fert. Something like a 13-13-13 or a 15-5-10. There are other good blends. But I would for sure want to bump up the last number which is the Potassium. That is going to help your St. Aug deal with stress. And I would prefer you use Ammonium Sulfate based nitrogen. Johnson Feed in Lewisville has a private label fert called. Texas Green. It’s a 28-3-10. Downside is it’s a urea based nitrogen. Nothing wrong with urea. At the end of the day the grass doesn’t care where it get’s it’s NPK from as long as it gets it. But you as the applicator knowing what NPK sources to use will help improve your soil and response. The Johnson has a good list of mircos in it too. The better option and if it was me. I’m making the drive to the Krum Feed Store and getting APF K8. It’s a 15-5-10 with micros and ammonium sulfate based N.

Take it slow. Let’s go low rates the rest of the year and see how it goes. Johnson Fert apply 1lb per 1000sq feet the first weekend of every month through October. Or APF K8 at 2lbs per 1000. Same monthly deal. Water both in. That will give you just a tad over 1/4lbs of N per month. Stay on top of you fungicide apps and lets see how things do come the end of September.

Wow thanks for taking the time for that detailed response I will look into this straight away staring with the sulphur.

Hard Rain this is my nephews St. Aug. They had about 4k sq feet installed last year. They asked if I would manage it for them. I don't physically do the work, but he does what I tell him to do and he does it. He's in a very heavily wooded area. When he built his pool he was able to take out a couple trees that helped but still heavily shade. Last year I had him run APF triple 13 and this year he's running APF 15-5-10. Couldn't find the K8 anywhere locally when were buying. Last year he did get some Grey Leaf Spot and hammered down on fungicides. He has been good about applying fungicides as a preventative and so far no signs of disease. This pics are from last weekend. He needed to mow but had been on call and got behind on it. He has runners that are 3+ feet long going into the areas that weren't sodded. He does not have irrigation and has to manually water every everything.