When I bought my house in Virginia, my yard was predominantly weeds. We
contracted with Lawn Doctor. They came in the fall and on 2 separate
occasions gave our lawn the Round-Up treatment. Then they came and seeded
over the dead stuff. We stayed with them for a year and they came and took
care of our lawn on regular intervals (6 times that year). That first year,
we had a beautiful, green lawn with few weeds. The only thing I regret is
not having tilled the yard before they seeded. Our soil tends to be
compacted. I thought they were going to till after they killed off the
weeds, but they did not.

The point to my story? Live with the weeds now because I think it's too
late to start. My understanding is that it's best to try to establish a new
lawn in the fall when the weeds start to die off. My suggestion would be to
give the whole back yard the Round-Up treatment, then when everything is
brown, you may want to till just to loosen the soil. Then seed and use a
starter fertilizer.

Everything I've read indicates that a healthy, thick lawn prevents weeds
from taking over. I've witnessed it in some neighboring lawns. Use a weed
& feed on the front lawn in the spring. It may be too late for you now but
it's still worth a try, in my opinion.

Hope this helped.

Lynn

"Evan Mann" wrote in message
om...
My lawn is a major mess. I live in Central FL and the grass type is bahia.
The front yard isn't too bad but it has lots of patches of what I believe
is
crabgrass and TONS of dollarweed.

The backyard is another story. over 1/3 of it is pretty much all weeds.
Crabgrass (again, I think) and various other entities that are definitily
weeds . There is probably now live bahia in this entire 1/3 area.

Now I realize this is a garden newsgroup but I'm not into
gardens/gardening.
I'm looking for advice on how to handle this. Can I effectievly kill the
weeds in the frnt yard and get it fully healthy?

Can I do anything to slavage the backyard portion that is bad, or do I
need
to till it all up and start over?