Where are you located?

If you are going to be that warm that quickly, you already need to have a crabgrass pre-emergent on the soil, which is a chemical that prevents (simplified explanation) germination of the crabgrass, and other summer annual seeds, before it gets going.

As far as existing weeds, I would do that before it gets into the 90s.   I try to never put any kind of weed killer on the lawn when it's that hot.

Forgive me if you said this.   Are you going to scrape off the topsoil and save it?  

Cuz...8 feet down, you won't have anything good.   What you save will be cheaper than what you buy.

I'm not dodging your questions. Just trying to understand exactly what will be happening.

Well...where you are, more than a foot down, and you have no viable soil.  (nearly the same here, though if you were in Iowa, that would not be the case)

So if he will pile up topsoil, AND subsoil in a separate pile, and replace those in the right order, it will be worth it.

Can you get a closer pic?

From a distance those look like daisies.

It is daisy season, but it is impossible to tell from the fuzzy photo.

Do NOT spray something unless you know what you are spraying.

"Aw, just spray some XXX on it. It'll prolly kill it" is not acceptable.  Not in this thread, and not for any responsible homesteader.  

Clear pics please.

@DirtNasty there are some centipede questions later in this thread.  Just above.  Any input from you regarding specifically centipede would be welcome since you study the warm season grasses  I know a bit about Bermuda, but nearly nothing about the Centipede and St. Aug (except that a lot of chems can't be applied to those.)

This is a good question and I don't know the answer for the warm season except to say....pre-emergent is your friend, and you should a-alternate pre-emergent chems, and keep one on your lawn at all times UNLESS you are going to overseed the bermuda. In that case, read the label and make certain to plan WAY ahead so you don't put down a pre-em when you are going to overseed.   Your hope is in building up the Bermuda so thick that you can spray the VERY TOUGH weeds out of it.  It's the alpha grass.  Given half a chance, it should be able to take over.  Do you have any hope of irrigation?

@PewPewPew1212

@KNothead71

I'm behind, and I apologize for that.  Spring beats the hell out of me, and there have been some other things happening which I will not go into. Still, I started this thread so feel bad for not keeping up.

I don't know if you are willing to change grasses, but Bermuda is easier.  There are more chems you can use on it. It's the alpha grass. It will compete where few others will USUALLY.  Take this with a grain of salt and do your research first, but I'm asking because Bermuda --the improved varieties is what you would want) will grow in your area and will open some options for you. Centipede is one of the grasses that on damn near any herbicide label, it says, "do not use on Centipede."  Which really limits your options to a good lawn.  It is my opinion that if you're going to have a warm season grass, get one you can actually manage, or else plan to hire a company, but even the best companies I know in the deep south (they charge a lot of money and are worth the money they charge, seriously) tell customers, "YOu have Centipede.  I can't do X, Y or Z for you. Suck it up."  So....in my book this is cause for a "kill and start over."

NOW THEN...In my book, your trees are worth TEN THOUSAND TIMES what your grass is worth.  Because a-shade, b-beauty in the landscape you cannot get any other way and c-I think trees are sentient beings different from us, but sentient still), and should be honored as such, but that aint the human science here, so that's all I will say about that.

As to the shade....Here is what I recommend.

NO, you will not get Bermuda to grow in shade.  I dont' know about Centipede.  But considering your circumstance (I wish I had photos, I would do a design for you) I see a number of options for your yard.

a-landscape around those trees.  Make big beds. BIG beds, which will need to be sprayed three times a year to keep completely clean.  Edge those beds, so where grass meets bed is neat, and you don't need to trim. You can roll right beside the edging with the mower, and it will be neat and done. Stick an enormous rock or a boat anchor or something in the beds if you want to...that's on you.  But just the design of the beds will add significant interest to your landscape, and value to your property.  Big trees ALWAYS add value to a property unless they are ten seconds from toppling onto the house.  Just sayin.

b-Outside of the beds, grow Bermudagrass.  The improved varieties are gorgeous.  It's the alpha grass.  You can't kill it.  Try. I dare you. Bermudagrass is So. Much. Easier.  than the other warm season grasses because of the options you have for weed control and the (how do I say bigger than the galaxy?  Whatever word that is, it belongs HERE****)  So...So much easier than the other warm season grasses because of the options you have for weed control and the ****** number of videos and inputs from everywhere that are already out there to teach you how to care for Bermuda.  

Let me say...for me, Bermudagrass is the devil.  I unleash every power in Heaven and EArth to kill it in my grasses.  And you know what the result is?

When I meet with a customer, I say, "I try not to use the word "kill" when I talk about Bermudagrass, because I don't have a chemical that I can swear will completely kill it even in three applications.  And when we speak of killing it out of your fescue/bluegrass?  I can't do that in one season.  We are talking about an ongoing suppression project."

Yeah.  That's how bad it is. That's how hard the damn stuff is to kill.

BUT FOR YOU????  That's going to be YOUR GRASS!!!

That's what you WANT!  You want hard to kill.  You want resilient.

So...My advice to damn near anybody in the deep south is to...loose the weird grass and grow Bermuda.  

BEFORE YOU DO THIS, YOU SHOULD READ/WATCH/LEARN.

i will give you any links I have.  Any resources I have.  This is not a choice you should make because of one post on arfcom.  Check with your county extension agent.  Do your research. Ask again here.  I will help all I can.

@sg1991  You are getting good help from @thestig  but I differ in opinion in that I would recommend getting a soil test because that will help you going forward for about the next three years.  You have no idea what they put down, as far as where it came from and/or what's in it.  So throwing down fertilizer will be like throwing a dart blind from this point, unless you have something to point you in the right direction.  Waypoint is a good start.  Even just the basic NPK levels will be a help.  Be CERTAIN you read carefully the directions for how to take you test, as you want to be sure to not include a lot of roots from the sod, etc, in the test.  You want the SOIL it will be growing into.  AT least the top 3-5" of that soil.   HOWEVER...if you have just put down fert, you want to WAIT TO TAKE THE SOIL TEST. Because the fert in the top layer of soil will make the soil test lie to you.  So...wait a few weeks (or even until fall) and then pull the sample for your test.

From what I understand, St. Aug will fill in really quickly.  So the main leveling you will need to do, will be in those slots between the rolls of sod.  

So for pre-emergent weed control, you do need to wait until your sod is really well rooted, because the pre-emergent herbicides most used now do their work through "root pruning."    That means what they do to control weeds is as follows:

The development of weeds goes like this:

~The weed seed is present in the soil.  It sits there waiting, until it gets the right conditions, including some moisture.
~The moisture swells the seed coat (the tough outer covering of the seed)
~Once the seed coat is swollen and softened, the seed puts out what we call the radicle.

Here's what that looks like:



So what happens is, when you have a pre-emergent on the lawn, that root comes out, hits the pre-emergent layer, and the herbicide kills the root.  Boom.  No weed develops.

That's what you WANT.

HOWEVER....

The pre-emergent does not know the weed seed from the grass seed. It whacks all radicle roots.

It ALSO stunts the new roots from present sod, whether that is grown from seed or laid on the ground in rolls.

It basically slows the rooting.

So for at least the first season, you want to avoid that.

Now then..

AS for your chemicals to control the weeds...a couple more mows, depending on how well established your sod is, you should be able to go ahead with some weed control.

I don't know what to tell you to put down. HOWEVER, I will recommend some people for you to watch and learn from.

1-The Lawn Care Nut.  

he has Floritam St. Augustine grass on part of his lawn. He talks about it.

Here is his site.  He has been on line for a long time, and there are a LOT of videos, and there is a PROGRESSION.   You won't care about most of what he has to say of late. But even though you are not a beginner at lawn care, you will want to spend some time watching all of what he has to offer on general lawn care, especially in the deep south, and in particular, about what he says concerning his St. Aug grass.  .

2-Also, pay attention to this guy.  Jason Creel.  He's an interesting guy.  But he does lawn care professionally in the deep south.  He spends a lot of time talking about chemicals.  He has a number of videos on St. Augustine Grass.    He is ALWAYS worth a watch, although he does some vids for lawn care business people on how to do business.  You might want to skip those because they wont' be interesting to  you.


I will say that..

The fact that you have irrigation is a HUGE plus.  That is your ticket to a great lawn.   There are a lot of resources out there to help you with the rest of the stuff, AND how to SET YOUR IRRIGATION THE RIGHT WAY.  Because your installer is not the one to trust to do that.  He puts in pipes.  He does not grow grass.   You are growing grass. You have to learn how to set the irrigation the best for your lawn.

So let's start there, and have you absorb that and let us know how you are doing. Post some photos of your lawn, with any follow up questions AND...ask any that I have not answered.

The keys are:

Mow
Water
Feed

You are doing that.  Now let's tweak it.  Post what's happening.  Hopefully I will be able to get here in good time.



Ask more.  

@chriscamilo

That's not poke.  Poke does not have heart-shaped leaves.  

Here is a page full of photos, mostly all of which are pokeweed.  You will see that almost none of them have heart-shaped leaves.  And the growth habit when poke is young is absolutely NOTHING like what you have pictured here.

Google page for Pokeweed


Here is a page that does a good job of picturing pokeweed, from young through maturity.  
Good writeup on Poke.

You will see that none of the leaves have the distinctive heart shape of the plant in your photo. Nor do they have the distinctive red veins in the leaves. The growth habit is also completely different not only when young, but also throughout the plant's life cycle.  What you have is not pokeweed, but I will need some time to identify it accurately.

Identification is the first step to erradication.

But the main points are, a-dont' eat it (you can eat young poke. I grew up harvesting it and my people cooked and ate it. I hated it so did not eat it much.)  b-don't spray anything on it and waste the money or the time, and spray something into the world that might not kill it, until you know what it is.

It's in pots.  You are saying it is also in your yard?  I looked wrong.  

If you want to kill the plants without hurting anything else, pick a day when there isn't wind, and mix the glyphosate in a jar of water.  Get a cheap paintbrush and wear rubber gloves. Paint the herbicide onto the leaves of the plant.  Don't drip it on anythign you don't want to die.    

Tell me where you are located and I will be better able to help with weed identification.

ETA:  SORRY!  At first glance, I thought you had it in pots or a flower bed.  It sounds like that's not correct though.

Can we see it in the actual yard?

Also...don't apply glyphosate to the actual soil.  You won't kill anything that way.

I can recommend the right thing/way to kill this if painting it with glyphosate won't do it.  (Glyphosate has to be applied to something GREEN to do anything.  It gets absorbed through foliage only.  It is not taken up by roots)  

Let's figure out what you have, and we can help you kill it.

Oh yeah...build a tiny guest cottage. I'll come help you landscape and stare at the view and drink wine with you and your wife.  

*deep sigh*

Okay....I went back and re-read your first post.   Tell me what you are after here.

You're going to sow FESCUE, okay?  

Not the cheapest fescue you can buy, but a really good quality, turf-type tall fescue.

I'm saying that, assuming you want a gorgeous yard.  Landscaping will come in there, but how can I help you plan and what are you after.  Tell me what you are willing to do, how much you will water, etc.

You are in a good location to grow grass.  It gets hot, but your mountains mediate some of that.  It ain't like you're livin in Memphis.

ETA:  Will there be a retaining wall back there?  Cuz that cutout is gonna....collapse or something..over time.

@bansil

There are a number of grasses that can mimic Poa annua.

Without a photo, it's hard.

Poa annua cannot take heat, and is an annual grass.  It's not perennial. It comes up each year from seed, which germinates in the fall or very early spring. (It takes a fall pre-emergent to control it.)  So people don't like it because it's not a year-round grass.  It checks out when temps get hot, and the seeds lie in wait to come up after soil temps drop below 70 ish in the fall.  As far north as you are, you probably don't see a lot of it coming up until after the winter because you get snow cover I'm guessing?

Now...there may be some regional differences, but HERE, it stays very short.  You will almost never get it with a mower unless you are mowing your cool season grass way too short. One way to tell it is that it has those little pyramid shaped seed heads LONG before your normal fescues or KBG seeds.

Another grass people confuse with Poa annua is creeping red fescue.  I doubt it was that, but it has a very fine, sometimes neon-green blade.   (And most people want a darker green lawn.)

The neon-green color is most often associated with Poa trivialis, but it is generally taller, and grows faster than the rest of the grass.  In spring it looks like a soft carpet of bright green against the darker green of the desirable turfgrass.  Later in the summer, it develops a coarser appearance as the stems and leaves get taller.  

Here is a good writeup to help know the difference between Poa annua and Poa trivialis, but even with these things, all of us stop and stare at these grasses and go, "is that what I think it is?"  I don't do that with annua any more because I am so familiar with it, but trivialis always makes me stop and double-take, then look closer.  

Take a look at this from Purdue.

Here is a page of images of creeping red fescue.  Note the fine grass blades, and the paler green color.

There are a lot of reasons to NOT grow this grass, but some people do love it.  

ETA:  I should say this here...there are a number of conversations around professional circles about Poa annua becoming more heat tolerant, meaning it may stay around all year instead of dying out in the heat (for you, the dieback would come later anyway, because the heat likely comes later in the season for you) and thus it might become a perennial grass.   That's bad, because it means we can't get rid of it with any kind of pre-emergent or selective herbicide.  But so you know, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, plants adapt and change to survive.  The undesirable Poa species may well be changing right in front of us.

There you go.  That's exactly it.  I had identified that for somebody before a long time ago.  I was having the weirdest dejavu looking at your photos.  

But I couldn't remember what it was.  If I've ever seen it in person, I don't know it.  Extremely invasive and hard to control, from what I'm seeing.

Going back through here, I think I missed this.   Did I?

If I did, @PewPewPew1212 can you get a photo of the weed you call "sticker burrs/grassburs"?   That will help with knowing what to put on the ones you might get breaking through your pre-emergent.  

Well it's gone so I'm assuming this advice is not of use to you at this point, however before you do that, I would DEFINITELY get a positive ID on the grass, so you know what you're putting in the yard.  For your own good, but if it happened to be Poa trivialis that is just not getting tall because of the conditions in that particular spot, you would not be doing other homeowners a service by intentionally spreading it of course.

Now then...there ARE other grasses that have that green hair look.   Just none that I can think of that remain as short as you are indicating.  Of course, what a grass will do in Southern KY may be quite different from what it would do in MI.   Nevertheless, I don't hear anybody talking about what you describe as one of the ones I know of. (Is that a confusing sentence or what? The tired is making me sloppy.)

I do wish there were pics. I am so very curious now.

Y'all, if I miss anybody's post, it's not on purpose.

I'm usually late at night, or end of day and tired (and sometimes there's wine ) so if you see someone I miss, please bump me or bump the thread and link to what I missed. I don't want to leave anybody out.

Take pictures.  If you don't want to spray any herbicides, I will tell you that you have some work cut out for you, but take pictures and let us see this devil weed.

You are WAY more in tune with warm season than I am.    I will say there appears to be a LOT of either thatch, or dead something in that lawn.

I would not have been able to instantly ID this as St. Aug, and I'm interested in how you did that?

Of course, I don't have that grass up here.

So the learning curve is steep for me with the warm season grasses.

@TheStig

I agree 100 percent with @TheStig with regard to Allyn Hayne (The Lawn Care Nut) and watching his channel.  But search in the videos for St. Augustine and see what comes up. there will be a lot of videos.  I have other sources I can provide if you don't get what you need there.  

He has St. Aug in part of his own lawn, and he spends some time on that, and you will learn from him.  (He's a really good guy, btw, but his business is going in kind of a different direction of late.  I don't necessarily love that direction, but we each have to do our thing, so I don't fault him for that.)  

So there are other youtubers who have warm season grass, and there are resources out there.  

Your county extension agent likely has some resources for St. Augustinegrass, and you should look at those, for a basic education about your grass.

Let us know what you see/find, and let us help if we can.

Let us know what you find, and holler if you have questions!

Don't do it.  You will lose 3/4 of your seed, most likely, unless you are prepared to drain the aquafer dry and even then you will still lose half.

Your seed will keep just fine.

Know your date of first fall frost.  Back that up two months.  That's when you seed.  

you must ABSOLUTELY keep your seed dry.  If you let it get damp, you will lose it.

Keep the seed DRY.