Howdy, live on an ancient sand bar called Rockport, TX. Have a lawn of St. Augustine. Now for the ego part. My lawn is NOT as LUSH and GREEN as my neighbors! I want their lawns! Mine is OK, not great just OK. Green but not the deep green and thick, lush of theirs, why? What do I need to do? Use a slow release, multi chemical fertilizer twice a year. What else do I need, what other nuterients do I need apply? We have 1/2 inch or less top soil and then SAND, only SAND. What can I apply that will thicken and green up my lawn, DO NOT want to be the only house that has a green, but thin and kinda sickly looking yard. Asking for a friend!

Have you thought about asking your neighbors what they do?

Do you have the same variety of St Augustine? There was LOTS of Raleigh planted here, and it SUCKS a lot of the year. FlorTam, and if you can find it, Delmar, is the way to go. Your neighbor likely has FlorTam.

Try some ironite. St. Augustine up here in Central Texas loves it.

Aggieangler93 said:

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Try some ironite. St. Augustine up here in Central Texas loves it.

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Really good way to load up your yard with heavy metals from mine tailings. Not a fan.

7-7-7 iron made by grigg bros. It will make anything deep green. Also a low dose and slow release if N so no flush if growth you can't keep up with.

So you have very shallow topsoil and it is basically sand anyway. So basically you have zero nutrient holding capacity.

Break up the nitrogen to less quantity and more frequently. Iron and sulfur will green up grass about as fast as anything on the market.

Finally, if your yard is healthy why care what the neighbor's yard looks like?

Here is my experience with st Augustine. I did the twice a year weed and feed and pesticide treatments. My yard was in terrible shape. I mean i was a car on blocks from being considered white trash. I hired a lawn care company to do the fertilizer/pest/herb treatments. They came out 6 times a year to do whatever they do. Within a year my yard was blue-green and so thick it was hard to dig in it with a shovel. I never knew St Augustine could look so good. Not a single weed and never an issue with chinch bugs or fire ants. I did this for 3 years and then decided to try myself again. I fertilized 5-6 times a year applied pest and herb as tamu suggested. It took 2 years but my grass eventually declined but not to white trash level. I was also spending nearly what the lawn care company charged me. I'm considering turning it back over to them.

TLDR. Try a lawn care company and pay attention to what they do

get on the Randy Lemmon schedule, stat

AgResearch said:

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Aggieangler93 said:

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Try some ironite. St. Augustine up here in Central Texas loves it.

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Really good way to load up your yard with heavy metals from mine tailings. Not a fan.

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The levels of metals are so low as to be nearly negligible. Compare the levels of other ferts that people use and think are perfectly fine.

If I lived in Rockport, I'd ditch my St. Augustine and plant Seashore Paspalum.

I'm still leaning towards variety, especially if the OP has done decent care. A neighbor on one side has Delmar, the neighbor on the other has FlorTam. I have FlorTam in the back. I'm an Agronomist and do everything but sing songs to my Raleigh out front, and it will NEVER look as lush as my neighbors. It looks good for 4-5 months, but it is a fight compared to my backyard that looks good 12 months of the year.

On another note, Ironite is trash. Get High Yield soil acidifier.

Plant a feed plot and get some babydoll sheep