I'd add calcitic lime, definitely not dolomitic as that has Mg which you don't want. I'm sure Virginia Green knows that, but I'd make sure anyway. Your Ca/Mg ratio is low (ideal around 7:1) so bumping up your pH a little will help that ratio. You have sandy soil, with rather lowish CEC so it should be easy to move your Ca value up. I see you got a buffer pH done this year. I'd add as much organic matter, lawn clippings, milorganite, leaves, sawdust, etc. to get the % organics up some.

You could bump up the phosphorous with some starter fertilizer.

Wow thank you so much that was increasingly informative. I’m going to nearly copy paste that directly to VA Green and just ask them to confirm a couple points.

Follow up - do any of these metrics explain why my lawn hates absorbing rain water? Like to an extreme degree. Some suggested hard pan. But wondering if adding more organics would help runoff.

An imbalance of minerals in your soil can make it behave as if it were compacted. If you have an excess of Mg this can create such a soil. It doesn't seem like yours is high enough to do that, but at least be aware of the possibility. It's hard to say much else as we don't know what kind of lawn you have, what part of the country etc.

In any case, if you don't have good soil penetration when you water, the first thing to try is adding about 3 oz baby shampoo/1000 sf of lawn with a hose end sprayer. Do this once a week for three weeks or so and water it in with plenty of water, or do it just before a rain. Search this forum for a lot more info on the subject.

Although SMP LR tables vary slightly, the average for that SMP Buffer pH is 40 lbs per thousand square feet of 100 CCE lime to raise pH to approximately 6.5. Adjust for the CCE of the lime product they use. Ag lime runs beween $3.50 and $6.00 for a fifty lb bag. That way you can figure what they are charging for labor and decide if it is a value.

So--- 1) is that necessary

Turf (grass) will do fine in pH 5.5 to 7.5. You've got 2 prior years of pH 6.3. Although your lower CEC is more susceptible to changes in pH, I'd be a little wary of one test at pH 5.8. There are a number of reasons that that pH might not accurately reflect the true situation, so rather than play 20 questions with you, I'd suggest you play it safe. Personally, I'd apply 15 lbs of a calcitic Ag lime or 9-12 lbs of one of the "fast" release calcitic limes per 1000 square feet and retest next year. 6-10,000 square feet of lawn will take you about an hour at most to apply. Check to see what the lime product of your choice, for your square footage of lawn, will cost and decide if you'd rather pay them the cost of labor. Anything with a CCE of 85-100 will be fine at those application rates.

You will want to improve your phosphorous levels. You don't say what type of turf you have, so I wont recommend application dates, but you will want to add about 3.75 lbs per thousand square feet of P2O5. Starter fertilizer is a good product source for applying phosphorous and N in one stroke. Optionally, I'd suggest you also increase potassium too. In that case, should you so decide, you could use any triple NPK at the rate of 1 lb of N per thousand square feet 3 times. Let the N application recommendations for your grass type be your guide for the year.

Morpheus!!! You have to come back!!! I haven't seen you know who in quite awhile in this forum. Just ignore him if he does show up. I got clobbered with fungus this last year in particular and need some ideas. If you're back I'd like to start a new thread on the topic.

John hasn't followed up in his own thread so maybe he's gone...

Eh, I'm only mildly motivated; I seem to attract jerks. :-)

I also had fungal issues this year in the lawn, and enormous ones on the zinnia due to the weather. My mother had similar problems on her lawn, same reason. We did treat hers with a commercial antifungal, which worked great.

I’m digesting every one of y’all a posts. So helpful. For those who asked - it’s mostly tall fescue. But this past fall I threw down a seedland blend of like 80/20 fescue KBG. Just to experiment. I trust VA Green because my lawn is amazing and I haven’t had a weed in 3 years. However, I do a lot of side supplemental work myself to compliment their work. Mostly because it’s a hobby. Anyways, if fescue changes any opinions above let me know.

I had it narrowed down to either warm or cool season grass. :)

Warm season grasses have a different N schedule than cool season grasses. With cool season grass, you should fertilize once in the Spring and then the majority of N in the Fall. For fescue, the recommended schedule is one in the Spring and two to three applications in the Fall (one of the applications being a "winterizer).

No judgment from me on using a lawn service. The lime (pH adjustment) is your choice. I don't expect that you will see much difference in the turf either way. If you decide you want to bump pH, that'd be a one time application ASAP and something you could do yourself if you wanted to save some $ with a small investment of time (see rates suggested above or go with the VA Green recs and services, if that makes you more comfortable).

In regard to the phosphorous and Potassium, you've got a better than 50/50 chance of actually seeing improvement in your lawn by amending them - improved growth, health, disease and drought resistance. Ask VA Green if they'll tailor applications for you. Can/will they apply a Triple NPK like 20-20-20? Once in the Spring and twice this Fall at a one pound rate per application per thousand. If they can't/won't do T-NPK, at least get 3-4 lbs per thousand of P2O5 on the lawn at the same one pound rate per application. That should be no problem for them as most services offer seeding service and will have Starter Fertilizer and often dedicated spreaders on hand.

I've combined daniel, Morphs, and blueridge's replies into one email to VA Green and said "I ran these tests past my friend who's an expert bla bla bla and would love to get your opinion on a couple of the points." But I phrased it to be clear I do in fact trust their service, that all I want is to get their opinion on some things.... I'll post the reply here.

Anybody else have problems with the automated email notification system on this site? At the bottom of the screen it says "click to switch off notifications about new comments" which seems to indicate that I am switched on to such notifications. My email address is correct, yet I don't get any notifications. I used to, once in awhile.

I am getting the email notifications. Is it sending them to spam?

That's a good thought, but no, not in spam. I used to get them but not always. Odd.

Someone call my name?

I'm going to assume that's a joke. If it's another sock puppet account, well...