St. Augustine Grass

Richard Sheehan – posted 10 August 2001 12:38

The centipede grass in my backyard died due to not getting enough shade. I need to get the yard resodded. I had a huge shade tree cut down so the sun would hit the lawn. Ihave had St. Augustine recommended as a replacement for the centipede. Is it too late to put out St. Augustine sod and if notwhat is the latest date that I can put it out??

seed – posted 10 August 2001 17:48

How late to sod depends on how far north you are, and if you accept the conventional wisdom that it makes a big difference. For example, based on winter cold survival of new St. Augustinegrass plugs planted througout Florida, at 26 Florida Extension Service Offices, it didn’t make any difference.http://floridaturf.com/problems/twissqu2.htm

Data was taken following the Christmas freeze, 1989 (actually, 23-24 December). Plugs at Osceola County had been in the ground 47 days when cold hit, with 95% survival at 18 degrees F (-8 C). Pasco County had about the same number of days, 44, also 18 degrees F, but less than 20% survival. There was a lot more variation in those numbers showing place-to-place variation, which could not be accounted for by number of days in the ground.

In the study, the only thing that made a big differences was the minimum temperature.

The potential for cold acclimation in St. Augustinegrass is slight.

That said, I would not heavily fertilize a newly planted area before cold weather.

Phil