Help! How do we bring back our lawn?

Our lawn is full of weeds and bare spots. We spent a lot of time last year getting rid of ground cover that was completely out of control and which had encroached on the lawn. We have armadillos, who constantly burrow in it for grubs, making it looking like it has been bombed! Adding to the problem, we did not put the lawn in, so don't know what variety of grass we have, but suspect it might be centipede. Don't see Centipede in Lowe's, either plugs or seed. I am a very patient person, and would be willing to plant plugs in the bare spots, but are stumped on the type of grass. As we really are not in a position to have the lawn resodded, does anyone have a solution? Could we re-seed, and if so, what would be the procedure to do this, and when is the best time to do it? Irrigation isn't a problem, as we do have an irrigation system and could water whenever needed.

We would like to get rid of the armadillos, but live in the woods and there is no way to actually get rid of them. They are nocturnal and nobody to my knowledge has come up with a way to trap them. They are stupid, but smart enough to stay out of traps! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The first step is you need to figure out why the lawn's in bad shape. Otherwise, if you don't figure that out and fix the underlying problem, then you're just throwing your money away with seed, plugs, etc.

You can use milky spore to help cut down the grub population, and that should hopefully help with the armadillos (although I have no idea what all they eat, so there may be other food sources around too). I'd also look at what sort of situation the grass is planted in--if it's too shady and has lots of tree roots, you're always going to have a hard time getting grass established, so you may want to consider another sort of groundcover instead.

Then if you can fix the armadillo issue and if the location is conducive to growing grass, I wouldn't worry too much about what kind of grass was there before, I'd talk to some landscapers in your area about what sort of grass is good and will do well in your area, and plant that instead, you'll be better off in the long run than if you try to match it with a grass type that may not be the best one for your situation.

Everything Ecrane has said is the best advice I would also give you, to start with, get your spade out, cut a sharp straight square out of the troubled bit (bare patch) lay this square upside down, look under the soil and also the roots beside this patch, it may well be that you have a load of buried rubble under the soil preventing air, water and grass roots to get down into the soil, if none of that is the problem, replace the square of lawn/soil back into place and gently stamp it back down, then use the fork dug into other areas to See if there is any underlying problems that need dealt with, again drainage, too little soil etc, if the fork dont go down at least 6 inches, then the top soil under the lawn is too shallow, the grub problem needs checked, what type of grubs are they, some grubs only live on the roots of lawns, eating them away therefore no roots etc, means no grass, there are grub killers for all different types of lawn grubs, find the grub and you can easily solve that problem, but to just go spread killer can do more harm than good as you dont want to kill the good grubs as well. maybe the lawn has too much thatch on the top, thatch is lots of dead grass that can collect after mowing, if you run the rake across the lawn, you will see it pick up a lot of dried dead grass, that is thatch wish stops moisture getting through to the roots, it smothers the good grass from light and it suffocated the green grass leaf, so there are several easy ways to try find out the problems of your lawn, a good lawn should last 30/40 years with good care and feeding cutting and aerating, that is to spike the lawn to let air into the roots. you can also buy good weed and feed lawn stuff that greens up the grass as it kills of weeds, best time for that is spring or autumn, once the grass starts to really grow or end of season when the growth slows down. to solve the problem is done slowly, make sure that really is the problem and then you can set about fixing it, but dont go with fixing what your not sure is the trouble or you can create more problems, also for the bare patches, get some seed down as soon as, the trouble with bare patches is that they are a nice area for more weed seeds to get growing, if you have a thick well growing lawn, weed seeds dont get a chance to grow. wish I could help you more as this is one of the most frustrating parts of the gardening year, but it can be solved, try find a book from the library on lawns and there problems, you will be surprised at how much light this can through on the troubles in your area. Good luck. WeeNel.

Thanks ecrane and WeeNel for the good advice. We will work on your suggestions.

personally I think I would find a grass that is very hardy in your area that is very thick and maybe alittle aggressive and just over seed the whole yard, when you do that you wet the ground just a bit spred your seed then water again and keep it watered daily, then after it starts growing don't mow it until it's a couple of inches high or you might rip the new grass right out of the ground.

as far as your bald spots if you just want to seed those, rake the ground alittle to loosen up the dirt the repeat as I said before.