I can't seem to keep my St. Augustine watered enough

[dcluck]

The past 10 days of intense heat has been rough on my lawn. Areas that aren't well protected by shade during the mid-day sun are showing signs of needing water constantly. This season I've been mowing high and watering once a week for over an hour in each watering zone. As it stands now, I've been trying to "keep up" with this heat and it's completely not working at all. I'm hand watering the really bad areas in the mornings (before 9:00am) and still I've got folded up leaves and in a lot of areas it's starting to brown at tad. Neighbors with st. augustine lawns that have zero shade and water once a week aren't having this problem. Is there something else that might be at play here besides the turf simply baking in this intense heat?

~Dave

[ZIPPER]

Dave,
What all are you doing for your lawn besides watering?

What are the neighbors doing to theirs?

Don't realy know where to start to give you some leads.

[dcluck]

The lawn and garden have been organic since we purchased the house last June. See my post in this topic for more detail http://www.dirtdoctor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1357

Recently I haven't done anything different at all. I couldn't tell you what the neighbors are doing outside of their watering habits, but I can ask.

~Dave

[dcluck]

Actually, areas that are well shaded by large oaks in the back and my neighbors' trees in the front are still showing signs of stress - if only slightly less so than the areas that recieve little protection from the sun. The leaves are limp and are folded up completely. In less than 48 hours after a deep watering I'm seeing this. Last year this wasn't the case by far. Hand watering every other day in the mornings seems to perk up things a bit, but I'm really trying to avoid using so much water.

~Dave

[Mr. Clean]

dcluck,

Because you are seeing these effects so soon after watering, I suspect what you are seeing is just heat stress. Have you checked your grasses in the cooler parts of the day? I haven't added any supplemental water to my yard yet this year and have watered sparingly (3 times) my beds which have a western exposure. My St. Augustine has shown some stress, but nothing I am worried about. My Fescue is looking spent, but that usually happens by late July or August. The Bermuda is looking a bit crispy, but should rebound and recover should we be blessed with some rain.

Unless you see some die back in your St. Augustine, I wouldn't worry about it. Continue your deep waterings no more than every 7-10 days.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

I keep soaker hoses on hand for just such occasions. Coil them around on the dry spots and let them go for a week. Adjust as necessary.

Home Depot has a great little accessory for soaker hoses. They are little flow restrictors that fit in where the washer goes. They basically plug up the flow except for a pinhole. This effectively evens out the pressure along the entire length of the soaker hose so you don't get a flood at the hose end and nothing at the far end. They work great! Alternatively you could turn the hose on to a trickle, but I find a lot better control with the little flow restrictors.

I found them near the soaker hose display. You might have to ask. They come in a blister pack with 4 inside (I think). They are yellow and blue, color coded but I don't think the size of the hole makes any difference.

I tried making a flow restrictor out of a butter lid. I cut a circle out and punched a small hole in it. However, it blew out quickly into a full sized hole under the pressure of the water. Maybe several butter lid restrictors would be stronger.

If the soaker doesn't work for you, you have other problems. Write back and let us know.

[dcluck]

Today I dug up some plugs (front yard and back) and took them to the nursery in order to see if they could see what the problem might be. They said there weren't any signs of bugs eating at the root system or anything else obviously wrong with the soil. It seems it's more an issue of this dark clay soil not being aerated enough along with some mild thatch that's keeping water retention from being what it needs to be. The nursery recommended a microbal spray and a polymer product used to increase water retention. Hopefully this will resolve the issue because my next water bill is going to be insane. The thing that's bugging me is how neighbors are getting by with much less water on their st. augustine turf. I'll try soaker hoses in areas that are getting full sun all day. As it stands now I can't go four or five days without watering before 70% of my lawn is stressed to the point that it begins to thin out, go limp and brown slightly. :(

~Dave

[Billusa99]

AVOID the polymer product.

Throw out a good layer of lava sand... cut a one gallon milk jug along the bottom diagonally... it makes a great thrower.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

If that polymer product is on top of the soil, the roots will get even less water. They have ways of injecting the beads, but I still would not use it. Besides it does decompose after a few years while organic materiel builds if you feed it right.

I'm trying to picture cutting a gallon milk jug to make a sand thrower. How do you get the sand inside? through the pouring hole? and how does the sand come out?

Having the microbes there and feeding them are two different things. I'm starting to think fungus (it's my one-track mind kicking in again - sorry). Just for grins, why don't you get some corn meal and throw some out on your dry spots before you water again.

[Billusa99]

Gallon jug scoop:

Hold the jug by the handle, upside down, with the handle to your body. Picture a diagonal cut down each side, from each far top corner of the bottom of the jug to just above the handle area... a big U-shaped cut down, across the top of the handle and up again. Then slice around the far side of the bottom itself to remove the whole section and trim it a bit.

Tape the cap on, and voila... big scoop/thrower that is great for small areas too because you can shake your hand back and forth while slightly tipping the scoop forwards and get a very even spread. If you hold the jug at waste level and shake your wrist/arm sideways a couple of feet either way, back and forth, it's your own mini-spreader and works awesome for lava and green sand!

The jug is somewhat pliable, so I refill it with a metal hand spade from the bag of heavy stuff like sand or composts.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Thanks Bill. I was not picturing a scoop. I was thinking of some sort of apparatus with holes in it to scatter the stuff. I often need a big scoop, thanks.