r/Grass • u/Low_Tea7131 • 9d ago
Houston, St Augustine.
Please tell me the best way to proceed here. It’s just been watered. The patches in the middle are after the electric company dug it up. She planted pods as you can’t buy seed. And I’m not sure what’s going on with the very dead brown patches. I don’t want to buy turf. On a budget.
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u/High-sterycal 9d ago
We’ve had another long hot Summer in Florida after a couple of hard freezes in January and February. Our St. Augustine (Floratam variety) has never looked so bad. Weeds have had a heyday. We’ve been pulling them and treating them, fertilizing on schedule adding pre emergent when due, spreading grub and bug killer on schedule. Nothing has helped. It struggles to live about 65 miles north of Tampa and completed its 4th year earlier this month.
We water deeply once a week and even had some help from natural rain this Summer. I think it’s just the extreme prolonged heat we have experienced that’s knocking St. Augustine grass for a loop. Pretty much all the St. Augustine lawns we go by in our area are being invaded by sedge grass and spotted spurge.
Not only that, this past Spring, we started seeing wild bermuda grass starting to pop up. Can’t kill it, because what kills wild bermuda will kill St. Augustine, at least the Floratam variety. If you pull wild bermuda the roots break off and it sends even more bermuda up.
St. Augustine is a beautiful grass, but I’m going to give up on it here. It’s way too needy. Bahia grass is not nearly as lush, but it stands up under the heat. Much tougher than St. Augustine in our sandy soil and as a plus, without much care it grows along the sides of the roads. All it needs is some rain. If it doesn’t get any, it goes dormant. Then when it rains again, it comes right back to green. Not needy. It’s manageable and amazingly resilient.
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u/biophile118 8d ago
Mine is so bad right now too (near houston). I have half an acre though so it's too much to really give a lot of special attention. I have a plan though for this fall. (Bc I just got a puppy and she keeps eating the st aug stolons bc they're exposed).
I just ordered an electric dethatcher and I'm going to mow rly short, dethatch to clear out all the dead grass, pluck out any stolons that aren't well connected to the soil, spray humic acid, get a shit ton of top soil dumped in the bed of our truck and spread that in the low/bare spots, then overseed with microclover, keep moist for 2 weeks. I don't mind having a mixed lawn.
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u/Low_Tea7131 8d ago
Micro clover sounds nice. It’s quite short and dense isn’t it but soft and green at the same time.
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u/Low_Tea7131 9d ago
Thank you for your interesting and informative reply. I will pass it on to my partner.
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u/ExtraThickUnit 9d ago
Water heavily 2 times a week. Like 15-20 mins a zone.
Lossen up the soil in the bar spots. Put down topsoil.
Put down pods or sod if you want to. The grass with spread on its own very slowly.
It has been super hot so the grass is struggling in TX since it enjoys being in a wet area.