I'll admit, I probably didn't water as much as I should have. I promise not to make that mistake next year.

I watered my grass every week for about an hour and my grass is still totaly dead.

I realize that it has only rained once this year, but I haven't missed a week of watering so I'm at a lost.

So sorry, but I'm totally confused. When did you begin the once a week irrigation and in what condition was the lawn when you began. Also, please tell your irrigation system. Sprinkler or inground system?

Based on the first statement that I quoted, I am assuming you didn't begin watering until fall arrived, which means the grass went dormant during summer and succumbed to the heat. A hot, dry summer is really brutal and while fescue is known to be both drought and heat tolerant (for cool season turfgrass that is), it can't compete with that double whamy and then cannot recover. Even during dormancy, the grass needs some moisture. It will benefit from a sprinkling during the hottest days, which isn't enough to break dormancy, and providing 1 inch a week will keep it green. One inch every other week will be better than none at all.

Of course, that's all based on assumption, so please answer the questions so I can be sure.

Was this in full sun by any chance?

I'm gonna have to agree with QQ. I'm also assuming you have cool-season grass (fescue. KBG, etc). If you have full sun everywhere and no relief from our brutal summer sun and heat, that's going to happen. I've been dealing with it for years until I planted a few 20-25' mid-sized trees or better...enough to get some dappled PM shade working to relieve some of that heat stress.

I don't think you did much wrong besides just bad timing. This was one of the hottest years on record in NC and we are in severe drought to boot. Most established lawns are going dormant and new lawns are mostly dead. Mother Nature can trump even the best plan.

For watering - you should check to see how much water you are actually putting out. Most people water WAY less than they think. An easy test is to put empty tuna can around the lawn before watering and see how much water collects. You want to have about 1 inch of water - pretty much a full can. I suspect you will find you are putting out less than half of that.

I'm with Bill. Lack of enough water.

Watering is "simple". But, alot harder to do right than it sounds.

You need to measure how much you are putting out and make sure the coverage is generally uniform. An inch a week is the rule of thumb, but in the really hot months it may take more than that to keep cool season grasses from going dormant, or worse, dead.

There is no perfect rule. You just have to watch your grass. When its hot and dry, VERY closely.

It will tell you it needs water by turning a darker color and not bouncing back when you step on it. It will tell you it needs immediate action by starting to get crispy (bad to to let it go this far.)

I often use a soaker hose to augment spots where my sprinkler coverage is not strong. That way I don't have to overwater the larger areas to keep the smaller ones sufficiently watered.

I often have to go to watering every three days to keep my cool season grass going during the very hottest part of the summer. Then, during cooler weather, once a week or even less.

But, on the good news side, sounds like you have the process of getting it up and going down pat!

BestLawn, in the fall I watered until the grass stopped growing. I started again in the spring once it started growing again. I didn't water at all during the winter. The grass looked great in the fall and just as good in the spring. As the summer progressed, my lawn quickly died. I use a sprinkler to water my lawn. The lawn gets sun pretty much all day.

Actually, tonight I heard that this year was was a record setting year for NC. We had the most days ever where the temp was over 90. It sounds like I need to water even more...

Thanks for the responses.

I ask myself the SAME QUESTION EVERY YEAR. I have repeated your process numerous times--in the spring and fall I have a lawn that beats the band. Anytime in between, it goes through periods where it thins away in various stages. I've never been able to diagnose the problem: at times it looks like every disease in the book; at others it looks underwatered; a week later overwatered.

I've tried it all: organic, synthetic, more, less, fungicide, insect control.

Until I find the root cause, I'm learning to live with it.

What kind of grass is in southern gold?

Cool season grasses do best in cool weather and struggle in hot weather.

I'll use KBG as an example.

If you fertilize in the late fall, a KBG lawn will be green starting in the fall and probably stay green all winter. I'm trusting that since it is green before it is covered in snow and green when the snow melts, that it was green while the snow was there. It will still be green in the spring.

When it starts to heat up, it needs more water. If it has deep roots, infrequent deep watering will keep it green. It has deep roots if it has been forced to grow deep roots by infrequent deep watering. If it has shallow roots it can be kept green (but not really healthy) by frequent shallow watering. Most of the lawns in my neighborhood are KBG lawns. We had rain in the first week of June and the first week of September. I had brown spots in my lawn, but most of my neighbors had lawns that were green throughout. The exceptions were those who watered so much that they drowned sections of the lawn.

just_asking - I'd like to mention one more thing. If you can get your grass to grow for several years (3-4) without burning all away you'll find that the older more mature fescue/KBG will tolerate the heat a lot better than newly planted grass a year or two before. Some grass will die and you'll have to reseed some more, but you'll find this will usually be less and less every year after. Also as I said earlier, a little PM shade will go along way in keeping it alive.

But, that's all out the window with the record-setting heat we've had this summer. Most of us are having to reseed for one reason or another this year.

There are two things I think you should do.
First of all, I can not stress enough the importance of root growth during the active growing season. This helps the grass deal with and recover from drought. Frequent shallow watering and compacted clay that bakes and becomes more difficult in full sun is going to make it very difficult also. If you are starting fresh this year then have landscaping company put out some finer textured top soil or possibly till the yard. I usually recommend people don't waste their time with this but if you can't add top soil, this would be a solution.

To give you an example of how this helps, some of my seeding from the fall got into my planting beds which were the have about 4 inches of additional soil there to raise them a little. There are several grass plants in those beds, Kentucky Bluegrass and Tall fescue that have remained dark green and survived without supplemental irrigation during 100+ temps and a lot of high 90's. The only relief it gets is in the afternoon from the shadow of a young 7' pine tree. The rest of the grass in my full sun back yard suffered considerably.

Which leads me to my next recommendation. No yard on the east coast should be full sun. There's no reason for it. It's the result of having a lazy developer or builder who wanted to sell the lumber that existed on the land. Plant some trees to give afternoon shade. In a warm climate it helps. You can also plant some trees on your property that drop their leaves early in the fall to let in sun and help with germination and establishment.

Jim makes a good point above. When you get fescue established, i.e. through a year or two, it becomes much more drought tolerant.