I'm in Eastern NC and last year's drought caused a lot of dead areas in my lawn. This spring every weed in NC started to pop up. It was(is) a sight to make a grown man cry so I found a very good landscaping Co nearby and they said it was beyond repair. So today the entire lawn was sprayed with industrial weed killer and in 3 or 4 days they will remove all the old grass & weeds and re-sod with Centipede and by Fri I'll have a new lawn and large water bills. I do not know the secret to eliminating weeds but I bought a stand up weed puller(Grand Daddies) and it works well with no bending over. They say Centipede is drought tolerant but I found that in extreme conditions is does need a lot of water.

SETX, Is pretty late, but I'd probably still apply dithiopry (Dimension) with the long summer we've been having. It gives a bit more extended effect than pendimethalin (Halts). Here's a recent GW thread with more details: New Home Weeds. "Weed n feed" products can work fine. But recommend separating the fertilizer and pre-emergent treatments for a couple reasons. First, it enables you to apply pre-emergents only where and when they are needed. As others have already said, once lawn is restored to health, 2X per year applications may not be necessary to all (any?) of your lawn space. Second, as recommended in the Neil Sperry article referenced in the earlier thread, heavy watering after fertilizer and light watering after per-emergent is not feasible when they're applied at the same time. We've rehabbed several yards successfully with the help of pre-emergents, wishing you similar results.

Don't get weed & feed products confused with pre-em + fertilizer combos. Weed and Feed products have weed killer and fertilizer, but they don't act like a pre-emergent. Apply to wet lawn so the granules stick to plant leaves, and the weed killer will be absorbed after 1-2 days. Don't water or mow until 2-3 days after you apply it. After 2-3 days, go ahead and water it in and don't let people or pets return until the lawn dries. Pre-Emergent + Fertilizer combos have fertilizer and serve as preventative weed control, but they do not have weed killer. Apply to dry lawn and then immeadiatly water it in deeply so as to evenly disperse the chemical into the top inch of the soil. Don't let people or pets return until the lawn is dry. Just clearing that up... I use the Pre-Emergent and fertilizer combos every year in early/mid March. In May, I might follow up with another pre-emergent product without the fertilizer, if needed. I don't ever use Weed and Feed products. It's better for your lawn, and your wallet, to apply fertilizer separately from weed killer. A better approach to using Weed and Feed is to fertilize your lawn with a straight fertilizer. This will get things growing, including the weeds. A week or two later, follow up with a pump sprayer with weed killer in it and spot treat the weeds. Since the weeds are growing due to the fertilizer, they will more readily absorb the weed killer and die faster. If you must use weed and feed, I would take care to NOT use weed and feed if you already used a Pre-Em+Fertilizer combo earlier in the spring. Too much nitrogen, which pushes too much top growth and depletes the Turf of the energy it needs to survive the summer. It also makes the Turf more suspectible to disease and pests.

Milo can burn if the weather is very hot and otherwise dry, although it's far less likely to do so than most synthetic fertilizers. In June, it's not a huge concern, but something to keep in mind if the weather spikes to 95 and the rain stops. I use soybean meal to feed instead (0% water soluble N), and even so, feed around May first as it takes 3 weeks to move into the soil. On the up side, the spring feeding is actually less important than fall, so doing it once with Turf Builder would be fine! Then slam it with nitrogen in fall for fall, winter, and spring performance.