St Augustine/Shade

kyleinmarietta – posted 19 August 2005 20:10

I have a need for groundcover in some sloped, fairly shaded areas in my back yard. I’m thinking that St. Augustine may be my choice IF it’ll handle the shade.

The question is: How much shade can St. Augustine handle? Got any anecdotes?

KBilly – posted 20 August 2005 15:01

In my old house it did wonderful with ~2 hours of morning sun and ~2 hours of evening. The rest of the time it was in shade from a 60 year old American Elm and and 70 year old pecan.

QWERTY – posted 20 August 2005 16:52

Try Palmetto SA variety. Supposedly its shade tolerant is pretty good.

RickV – posted 21 August 2005 03:51

I have Bitter Blue SA in one area of my yard it gets a total of about 2 1/2 hours of morning sun it does well. I was told by a local sod farm that Palmetto SA is great for shade but has problems with fungus if you live in a high humidity area with little breeze. I live in North Central Fl (Gainesville area) and we have heavy dew.

QWERTY – posted 21 August 2005 06:43

Supposedly 20lbs of cornmeal per 1000 sqft will keep “harmful” fungus under control. It might work better with a thin layer of finished fine screened compost that’s loaded with benefical microbes. I think it has more to do with the condition of the soil. If it’s not rich in microorgansims, you’ll have problems. That’s why chemical stuff doesn’t work well in improving soil fertility. The sod farms use a lot of chemicals to make it look good prior to the delivery.

StevieD – posted 22 August 2005 14:15

I’d go ahead and plant the bitter blue, if that works for your area, and see what happens. After 2-3 years, you’ll probably see that it will grow in some of your shady areas but that other, shadier areas will turn out to be too shady. In which case, I suggest making beds out of the too-shady areas.

AMCalla – posted 28 August 2005 21:46

St Augustine needs some sun, but will grow without direct light if there is 15 ft of light from the ground to the bottom of tree canopies. Not sure what kind of shade you are talking about. Trees? Structure? Part time, or all day?

AaronWeatherford, TX.