Question
Hi Charlotte,

I think I have just killed my Bahiagrass lawn.  My lawn was looking a little weedy and was not as green as I would have liked, so I put weed & feed on it for St. Augustine grass.  (Duh, read the directions)  Now my lawn looks mostly dead.  

My lawn is three years old. I was under the impression that Bahia's roots went down 8 feet or more.  Is that true?  If it is, will my grass eventually come back?  I cannot believe that I saw your 搘eed & feed recipe,?(sugar) before I spent $25.00 on that bag.  I had forgotten about it, and am REALLY sorry now.

My question to you is, what do I do now?  It has been a month since I applied the w&f and I watered it in well; and since then the infamous 揇ennis?left us with a LOT of rain.  The lawn shows no signs of recovery, and everyone's lawn is growing like crazy.  I have the worse looking lawn in the neighborhood.  To make matters worse, I love gardening and have many tropical plants that are healthy, green and lush, and growing like crazy which makes my lawn look even more miserable.  

What should I do?  Overseed with bahia?  Sugar? Wait?  
I am perplexed in North Port FL (zone10)  
Please help; I hate my lawn!

p.s. I have read your posts and will be adopting a new way of gardening from now on.  Do you have a book or pamphlet on your tips?


Answer
Hi Bev;
It don't look good.
I know nothing about bahiagrass, so I tried to find information on it.
Not a lot was forthcoming, but I found one sentence in one site, that sort of rang a bell.
" The grass will thin out over a time, and has a low tollerance to many weed control herbicides'
Yeah,,,,,,
I have St.Augustine in my lawn, and one time I used crabgrass killer on a few spots of crabgrass. It did kill the crabgrass, but it also killed my St.Augustine. It took 2 years for the St. augustine to come back in those spots, but the crabgrass was back the next spring.
hopefully Dennis was a blessing to you. Maybe it dumped enough water to wash that weed killer down and out of your soil. Hard to think of a hurricane as being a good thing, huh?
I fear you may have to just replace your lawn.
Consider St. Augustine.
It is a beautiful grass, and thickens up beautifully. It may ne a little less maintenance than the Bahiagrass sounds like.
When it needs water, it folds it little leaves up ( I guess to expose them to less drying sun) and when you see the leaves fold and look thin Instead of broad, you know it needs water. Give it a good soaking, and in a couple of hours, it is nice and broad again. I see mine folded up, and it looks like it is saying, "choke choke, please!!!" I soak the ground well, and then it looks like it is saying,   "Ahhhh, thanks" LOL
I don't have a booklet or anything published, but I have started to write a column for a website I go to that puts out a monthly magazine. It is

www.emptynestmoms.com

The site builder is coming out with a craft section too.
You don't really have to be an empty nest mom to go there. Some of the members still have children at home. I don't think you even have to have children to go there.LOl
There is a nice chat room where you can meet nice ladies to get to know and chat with. No cyber sex and junk, just good concersation with nice people. Good place to vent about problems you are having, in a safe situation. You can vent to others there, and not scream at hubby or a relative that is bugging you. It's like talking to a best friend, and knowing it is not going to bounce back and create a problem for you.
Go there and check it out. If you aren't into chatting, just go take a look at the magazine. some neat columns there already.
We have a scheduled chat on Monday nights, but some of us meander in there at other times to see if there is someone in there to chat with.
I hung around in there for about 15 minutes last night, and played free cell while I  waited I had the other screen up at the side. and then several came in, and we chatted about an hour or so. It is neat when you have some time, and don't like nything that is on Tv, and don't want to do anything else, but don't want to just sit and stare at the walls.LOl
Write any time.
Charlotte