What is the best way to care for St. Augustine grass in S. Fla?

Question

I have some patches that are growing back slowly as well as some dollar weed as well as other assorted weeds.

Answer 1

St Aug is not an easy grass to take care of. The broadleaf weed control that is available for it, (Atrazine) is only supposed to be allowed by the EPA when the daytime temperature is below 80 or 85 degrees F. As you know, that is not a very wide window of opportunity in S. Florida. It is also not nearly as effective as the weed control for other grasses (mostly 2,4-D), but 2,4-D will severely damage St Aug. Your Dollar Weed problem is even more difficult to control than most weeds. But it is a sign you are watering too much. Cut back or cut off your irrigation until the spring weather warms up or gets real dry. If you have nutsedge, and you probably do, (it is a narrow weed "grass" that grows straight up, twice as tall as St Aug, in half the time) then Manage, the control listed for nutsedge, will "accidentally" help control the Dollar Weed.
St Aug also has a bad chinch bug problem. If your grass is sparse and the irrigation is not broken, probably chinch bug is what killed those bare patches. Frequent applications of insecticide MUST be applied or else the chinch bugs will constantly be "eating your lunch."
Thirdly, there are fungus problems that attack St Aug. Fungicides do a little to help, but one type, "Take-All Patch" is especially devastating and hard to control.
If you want a glorious lawn and have the money, get a professional landscape management firm to put your grass on a spray schedule to take care of all these issues. If you are on a shoestring and most of your grass is already dead anyway, kill the remaining St Aug, and the weeds, with Roundup. Then seed your lawn with Bahia grass. It is the grass for south Floridians on a tight budget.

Answer 2

Check your irrigation system. Dollar weed is in area that as a rule have more water or poor drainage. Next feed the lawn with a quality lawn fertilizer for St. Augustine. Make sure your mower deck is about 3" or so in height. The blade should be sharpened often as well as dull blades tear the grass. Rake the weeds out pull by hand then apply weed and feed. Water only about 2 or 3 times a week tops. To much water will make for shallow roots plus we are in dry season if your grass is used to going deeper for water and is well fed you will be in good shape if we go on water rationing.

Answer 3

ask any one of your neighbors. they probably all have it. st. aug. likes shade or partial sunlight, not full hot sun. it will take all the water you can give it due to the sandy nature of the soil down there. there is a "weed & feed" especially for st. aug. available at most hardware stores. if you're yard is very sunny you might consider centipede.

Answer 4

Lots of water and fertilize every 3 months,do not cut grass to short, sun will burn the grass in florida,hope thats help.

Answer 5

Hire a illegal there good at that stuff