Category: St. Augustinegrass

St. Augustinegrass, Stenotaphrum secundatum, is a warm-season, sod-forming grass used extensively in lawns and parks in Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Texas. It is generally just called “St. Augustine” in the United States, or “Charleston” in some southeastern United States, and “buffalograss” in Australia and Republic of South Africa. Cultivars include the older ‘Bitterblue’ and ‘Floratam,’ dwarf cultivars such as ‘Palmetto’ and ‘Seville,’ and the latest ‘CitraBlue’ and ‘ProVista.’

St. Augustinegrass runners are entirely stolons (above-ground) so it has relatively little tolerance to defoliation (leaf removal). Drought injury, fertilizer burn, and scalping (close mowing) can kill St. Augustinegrass. St. Augustinegrass performs well in moderate shade although the cultivar ‘Floratam’ is less adapted to shade than the dwarf cultivars. St. Augustine is competitive to many weeds. The southern chinch bug, Blissus insularis, is a major pest. Cultivars have little or no cold hardiness; based on a field study in 24 Florida counties, St. Augustinegrass winter survival is limited to “a minimum air temperature between -6 degrees C and -9 degrees C” (Busey, 2003). The center of origin is almost certainly Old World because the six other Stenotaphrum species are entirely Old World in distribution, in an arc from southern African and across the Indian Ocean to Hainan, China.

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De-thach St. Augustine Lawn

lhb_tx – posted 20 May 2005 12:54 I have a 3 year-old St. Augustine lawn in central TX that has become heavily ladden with runners. I though about attacking the lawn with a de-thaching...

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Bermuda

Scott254 – posted 28 March 2013 23:59 Hey guys I live in south texas southwest of Houston I have been working SUPER hard to rid this bermuda I have in my SA lawn Ive...

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Sod roots did not take

shammock12 – posted 05 April 2014 15:07 I laid St.Augustine sod last early December – well I had someone else do it. However, I have noticed that the roots never took to the soil....