St. Augustine in North Texas...?

Hey, has anyone else seen problems in their yards or neighborhoods with St. Augustine grass? Almost every other home in our neighborhood has lost half of their grass since last year. We're not sure if it was the freeze, the drought, or what!

We have a 50/50 yard. We started out with Bermuda, and patched in some SA grass. Well, it has (thankfully) taken over the bermuda, and is spreading nicely. The areas closest to the house are SA with the areas by the street are still bermuda. That line moves out every year. The SA areas have NO WEEDS, where there are plenty in the bermuda areas.

Our SA is the best it has ever looked. Lush, green, healthy and spreading. Where our neighbors as close as across the street, have very little green left, and are very discouraged.

We are totally organic in our yard, and I can attest that none of our neighbors are.... Are there any others out there having or seeing similar situations? Synthetic or Organic?

We spent a small fortune on St Augustine for our property located between houston/dallas, zone 8. It died last year with extreme heat and was too weak to withstand frost of any kind. I have a few runners coming, but other grasses are taking over. We won't replace w/ St. Augustine, which we love for its lush green color and vigor.

My house in houston, Zone 9a, is all St. Augustine, with some bermuda patches that refuse to go away, it is lush, green. Our neighbors who are overwatering are already showing small patches of brown fungus. I do not use synthetic fertilizers or weed preventers, but use Talstar 1-2 a year (at 1/2 the recommended application) for ant control, so not purely organic.

I have lived in several houses with it and never had problems as long as it is given plenty of supplemental water. Most homes in the older neighborhoods in Dallas have St. Augustine and I have not noticed decline around here.

Are these newer homes with recent sod? Do they have any shade or is it all in full blazing all day sun?

One explanation may be the Weed & Feed that they are using. Many people don't realize that the most of the general weed killers in the big box stores will kill some St. Augustine varieties.

I have St. Augustine and only use Milorganite on it. I've never had Brown Patch, Chinch bugs, or St. Augustine Decline (SAD). Common SA is more cold tolerant than some of the new varieties.

Well, see, that's the thing about plenty of water... We water every 7-10 days. That's it. The neighbor across the street waters about every 3 days. His yard always looked so much more lush, thick and green, but we did what we thought was best, and stuck to our limited watering schedule... much to our suprise this year, ours is the only SA to survive.

No shade, full sun. The yards are all 8-14 years old, so none of them are new sod... except our patches, which are between 1 year and 5 years old... (again, still doing better).

Yes, I am thinking that the synthetics that they are using might be a key here.

What is the soil like? I have had to dethatch a couple of yards, not so much for the thatch, but to open the soil up a bit to allow the fertilizer and water in. The clay base was like concrete.

Yes, we do have heavy clay here... and yes, we have aerated our yard 3 times in the 9 years we have been here. I doubt seriously that the others have done this. Good point!

Yes, very good point! Especially if they are watering constantly. I just googled and found that overwatering causes thatch and that thatch is a symptom of shallow watering and chemical fertilizer. In the one house where we had St. Augustine we always had nice grass. My husband used synthetic fertilizer, and watered once or twice a week during the summer, but rented an Aerator twice in the five years. Something happened though and now I take care of the grass!


Oops, sorry about the bold... that'll teach me to make sure and preview.

This message was edited Jun 21, 2006 2:15 PM

Aerating is on my to-do list, I've heard good things about it. Maybe I'll just buy those shoes that have the long spikes in them and you walk all aver the yard (lol). Wouldn't those make some good pix for DG. Well forget it. If I get the shoes I'm walking at night when there's no moon.

One of the guys at work just had his lawn aerated. For about 80 buck they did the front, back and sides. He said it work wonders for his grass.

That's a good price not to have to do it yourself. I think we rented the machine for about $40 a day and you have to clean it afterward. If anyone has the nasty North Texas clay like we do, you might be able to imagine how hard it is to get those clumps out once they get stuck. The second time my husband chose to aerate it was after multiple rains. I'll tell you, that was a big mistake! Giant clumps of wet clay clogging up the machinery!

My St Aug yard - lets see I dont do anything to it but mow it and water it... it likes to stay tall 4 in or such. Makes it ok here and looks good for now in the ft of the house.

Our St. Augustine is doing fine although my grandmother's (she lives on the same 2-acre property) is almost completely gone. In our case I think the difference was shade; ours has a pretty thick pecan tree canopy over it and hers has no shade at all.

St Augustine can take full sun. It prefers full sun. It is, however, the most shade tolerant of the turf grasses. That is why we use it where we have trees. It still requires at least 6 hours of sunlight a day to maintain its vigor. Raleigh is the cultivar of choice because it is more cold hardy than others and is SAD resistant, which is a virus common to common St Augustine. Further south, Floritam is better. We could use Floritam here at this point, but if we ever have one of those real winters again, it will die.
Your neighbors turf may have Take-All Patch. It is a fungus that kills the runners and roots of both St Augustine and Bermuda grass. We see it all the time. That would be my first guess, but you need to look under a microscope to make sure.

Sweezel made a good point that kind of got thrown away. Weed and feeds are not good for trees and shrubs, and many of them are downright deadly to St Augustine. It is not chemical tolerant of many chemicals that can be used on other turf grasses.

i'll have to agree w/ paul.

To Paul:

I have an acre area under many oak trees that get filtered light about half a day. Do you know whether centipede grass will grow in this condition? I like SA, too, but don't have time right now to prepare the ground for sod. Thanks for any input.

Sita Brothers
Lone Oak, TX.

PS:

I am in East Texas, about 60 mi. due east of Dallas, zone 7b.

Ooh, I'm not much of a lawn expert (more of a lawn newbie really), but based on a little research I'd say it would do fine there. It's not quite as shade tolerant as St. Augustine but it doesn't sound like we're talking about really deep shade...

St Augustine will thin out in shade, and eventually become less vigorous. In shade, the blade should be mowed higher - at 4 inches or more, as opposed to the recommended three inches in sun. That leaves more surface area for less sun in order for the plant to maximize its photosynthesis which supplies it with food to live. But it will eventually go downhill unless it gets enough sunlight. Because it will starve.
Now, if you're talking about unwatered St Augustine, yes, I'd have to agree that the grass in the shade will do better, at least for awhile, because St Augustine requires regular watering. (Not as much regular watering as we city folks tend to give it....) The turf in the sun will dry out faster.
St Augustine growing under deciduous trees may last longer because it is still able to see sun in the winter. It doesn't go fully dormant, and that may help it out. But, I'm sorry, I've seen too many cases of lost St Augustine turf grown in too much shade.
And now I'll shut up....
CJ

Thank you Paul and CJ for your advice. I was sort of hesitant about the centipede seed, but the guy at the Co-op said it is ok for shade. The label though, said for partial shade. I think, my place is more deep shade than partial shade. So, I will just return the seed to the co-op. Thanks again for the help.

I have my St. Augustine always cut higher than 3"--it would continously look 'crispy' if it were cut that short.

Fly_girl. I have those shoes with the spikes and they do an Ok job aerating. I get funny looks and comments in my neighborhood when I mow my lawn every six days---I use a push rotating blade mower (Charlie Brown style lawn mower)---so high stepping with the blade shoes is no problem. Rotating blade mowers work great with St. Augustine because they cut high (and no gas or electricity). It's a good work out too, but not recommended for large yards.

I've found that it is best to use the spike shoes in the morning when the soil is a little damp. Occasionally, a larger clump of clay soil will come up with the shoe, but this happens less frequently than anticipated.

In the past, I killed off some St. Augustine with weed and feed. Will never use that product again. This year I put compost in a spreader and used that instead of fertilizer. Happy with the results.