AboutLong Island Gardener Expertise How to grow the Perfect Lawn? If you live in the Northeast/Atlantic Coast, I have intelligent answers on grass selection, fertilizers, soil care, weed control, and lawnmowers. Although I have degrees in related fields, a person's real gardening skills are learned from trial and error. More important, I am strict about not using chemicals in the garden. Organic gardening is not just earth friendly and healthier for you, your children and your pets. It's less expensive and easier. You read that right. Less expensive and easier.
Experience Homeowner for 15 years, 30 years of gardening for personal pleasure, college credits in horticulture and botany, volunteer docent at the local botanical gardens, and a whole library of gardening and landscaping books at home some 100 years old.
Question I have been trying too grow ceterpide tifblair in birmingham al then was told my ph is 7.3 so i added 50lbs of sulfur and reseeded with a seeder at same time. lawn 5,000sq and red clay. Do you think this will work or the sulfur burned the seeds?
Answer Centipedegrass does not complain much even if you grow it in poor Soil. It needs little maintenance.
However, Centipede is a also Grass that NEEDS Acid Soil -- a pH between 5 and 6.
To make growing and keeping a Centipede Lawn as simple as possible, toss a handful of seed down and watch it thrive. Remember, Centipede cannot take long droughts. Short droughts or cold waves are no picnic, either, but Centipede can take it on for short bursts.
Plants absorb Sulphur from the soil as a Sulfate ion -- SO4. You can bet that most Soil, whether Sand, Loam or Clay, is made of Iron Sulfides; by definition, then, most are LOADED with Sulphur ions just waiting to be put to use. A 50 lb bag of Sulphur would treat 5000 square feet of alkaline Soil, the maximum strength without hurting the plants. That figure comes from the regular formula using 1 lb Sulphur per 100 sq. ft, not to be repeated more frequently than every 8 weeks. To get from a pH of 7.5 down to a pH of 6.0, you would usually expect to use 3.5 lbs of Sulphur per sq ft -- but that is EVENTUALLY, not overnight. From the looks of it, you got your numbers right.
Aluminum Sulfate is also used to lower pH. When mixed with H2O, it becomes Sulphuric Acid. Measuring is very important.
I have not seen anyone mix Sulphur and Seed for a single application and so in all honesty I can't write it off as bad, or encourage it. Red Clay content varies actually from region to region. If you would please identify your zipcode, I will be able find your local geological survey and understand better what is going on with your Soil, and the effects that Sulphur has on it specifically. rsvp
