Planting a Lawn with St Augustine Sod | Lawn Care Blog …

When a St Augustine lawn or a section of a lawn fails for whatever reason you have several options. The most turned to option is replacing the lawn with St Augustine sod sodding is stripping St Augustine turf from a field and planting it on your lawn. Sodding a lawn brings instant gratification the failed lawn is preplaced by a successful lawn within hours.

The primary goal of preparing your lawn for sodding is to have soil to soil contact where the soil side of the sod is in contact with the soil of your lawn. There is lot of flexibility on how you achieve soil to soil contact, but the best method is to strip the existing weeds and such from your lawn with a sod cutter. This not only exposes the soil for soil to soil contact but often leaves a very level surface.

In Pinellas County, there is no month that you cannot plant St Augustine sod. Every season has its pros and cons but rarely (if ever) will St Augustine sod fail because of when the sod was planted. The best time to plant St Augustine sod is the wet warm summer months and the least optimal time would be the cold dry winter months.

Fertilizers are for the soil not the sod. If your lawn has poor unfertile soil as in it hasnt been fertilized in years then any fertilizer will help. The best fertilizer method for St Augustine sod is to apply a fertilizer to the soil before planting the sod. Consider putting about one pound of nitrogen per 1000 square feet of soil.

Planting sod is as simple as placing the sod pieces edge to edge and trimming borders to the size. No special technique or tips here just get the sod on the ground, green side up. One clue: There are about 450 pieces of sod per pallet and sodding goes quickly if you get in a quick paced rhythm of picking sod and throwing it into place and set your mind to doing just that - 450 times!

The number one determining factor for the success or failure of your newly planted St Augustine sod is water! The sod has no roots and has less area to obtain water than a well-established turf. You must compensate for this by watering every day for at least the first month. In addition to watering, the water must cover the lawn water goes down, it does not move sideways so if you are not watering a spot on the lawn, it will die.

The down side to instant gratification is the cost. A newly sodded lawn is about $4500.00 by contract or about $1000.00 plus a whole weekend of hard labor for the DIY. Renovation is the process of carefully nursing a lawn back to health with good management. However this takes time - often a year or more and you may still need to add sod to severely damaged areas. The up side is that it costs the same as taking care of a newly sodded lawn. For more information on lawn renovation read St Augustine Lawn Renovation | I Love Turf

Authored by Rick Orr

Rick Orr is an Agronomist and Owner/Operator of A Promised Land Lawn Spraying, Inc. A Promised Land Lawn Spraying Inc., is a family owned business serving residential and commercial (large lawn) properties in Clearwater, Largo, Seminole, St Petersburg and all areas of Pinellas County, FL. You can learn more at our Info Page or on Facebook . Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest. To request a a free quote for your St Augustine turf grass lawn, click here-> Request for Proposal<

View this author's website: http://www.iloveturf.com/company-info

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