Building a new lawn…

bocefus – posted 20 February 2004 21:43

I’ve read and researched all winter on how to construct and maintain a beautiful lawn. My plan right now is to till my existing lawn and sod with St. Augustine. I live in Northeast Florida and have a lawn that is 50% thatch. The lawn receives full sun all day with no shade. I would appreciate it if you guys could give me any tips, advice, past experiences, or mistakes made on a project like this. I do know that there is a lot more that’s involved than just tilling and laying sod. I plan to have the soil tested before I start to have a good idea for what nutrients it may need. Also, is there a good way to remove or kill the existing vegetation completely? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Mike

TextronSaudi – posted 20 February 2004 22:42

Have you looked at Paspalum? St. Aug. has quite large leaves, and my customers here who use it have to let it stay quite high (OK – maybe that will suit you?)

I understand that Paspalum is getting quite popular in your part of the country (much of the world’s sprigs come from farms around you) and the experience that we have had here in the Middle-East is very good – less prone to “browning” in the colder months (yes – we do have 2!), needs half the water compared with Bermudas. very tough on wear.

Main drawback is that you have to keep your cutting reels nice and sharp as it has tougher structure than Bermudas (even more so compared with St. Aug)

Quite a few people switching to it though – there’s even 2 golf courses that I know of using it for fairways **and greens** !!

Dchall_San_Antonio – posted 04 March 2004 00:15

You didn’t say but I’ll assume you have St Augustine currently. If you’ll follow the three main cultural steps below, you should be able to recover your current St Augustine turf in one season (or less).

1. Water deeply (1-2 hours at a time) and infrequently (no more than once per week). This will take care of your thatch and develop some drought tolerance for you. It will also prevent many weed seeds from sprouting.

2. Mulch/mow at the highest setting on your mower. There is no reason for St Aug to be mowed any lower. This will help with the deep root development, too.

3. Fertilize regularly. I like organic fertilizers, but the fertilizer choice is much less important than following steps 1 and 2 above.

If you have tap rooted weeds like dandelions, visit Wal*Mart and get a Weedhound. It plucks those suckers out as fast as you can step on them.