Beautiful Lawns are the dream of every homeowner and garden enthusiast. All over spread St Augustine makes a lawn look covered with green velvet. Gardeners absolutely love St. Augustine because they are super drought tolerant and can withstand mid-level shade. They are perceived to be warm-season grass but can finely survive on only four to six hours of sunlight daily. This grass species can beautifully cover up a lawn if you know how to make St Augustine spread quickly.
Many homeowners struggle to get their best yard coverage with St Augustine, but it’s not that tricky, to be honest. If you just follow the following steps, you will get a quick and beautiful layer of St Augustine on your lawn in no time!
Super Effective Method to Make St. Augustina Grass Spread Quickly
People love this grass turf for so many reasons! Having a beautiful bluish-green color, super drought, and humidity tolerance quality has made St Augustine much popular. If you live in or near Florida, you must know that most homeowners and the golf states have St. Augustine planted in their lawns.
However, if you are a new gardening enthusiast or a novice one struggling with spreading these turfs quickly can be complicated for you. But don’t worry, homey! We got your back, and after going through this easy and effective method, you will be surprised and happy.
Measure the Thatch
Thatch is the part of a lawn that happens to sit between the soil and the upper part of the grass layer. A thatch layer includes dead and alive parts of the roots, crowns, rhizomes and stolon. If you already have some St. Augustine planted on your lawn, measure the thatch’s height using a measuring stick.
You can dig out a chunk of soil to do it or just yield a stick and take the measurement from the accumulating part between grasses to soil. If the size comes out to be more than a half-inch, it can be the reason the grasses stopped spreading.
St. Augustine grass tends to produce mid to low levels of thatch, so to spread the grass evenly, you will have to eliminate the extra thatch it has got.
Use a Power Dethatcher
If there is a more than half an inch thick thatch layer under your St. Augustine turf, you will need to use a power dethatcher to eliminate the excess thatch it has got. This is a super easy process. First, you will have to take a power dethatcher and push it backwards and forward of your existing St. Augustine turf to rip off the thick thatch under them.
Keep the dethatcher pushed down when you are ripping off the thatch. Though don’t go too deep to rip off all the roots. This method is a well-known process among gardeners. They do it to recover their lawn and spread the grass quickly.
If you don’t have any dethatcher and don’t want to buy it, you can borrow it from a regular gardener or gardening centre in your local community. This is one-time labor, so you will be okay.
Clean the Debris
Once you finish detaching the whole lawn, take a rake and gather all the remaining debris from St. Augustine. Pick the waste into a basket or bag and dispose of them.
Aerate the Lawn
After cleaning up the dead part of your grass layer, you are ready to aerate the lawn finely. Take your Core Aerator and dig up the lawn into small plugs. Most Aerator digs up small holes that are one to six inches deep and three to four inches wide.
Core Aerators improve the drainage of the soil and fix the compactions of. Now you can rake up the lawn to extract all the small plugs from the ground. This will improve the quality of your lawn’s soil too.
Fertilize Them
Now you have given your lawn a fresh start, and your lawn soil will need some extra concoction to make your beloved St. Augustina spread. You can use any nitrogen-based slow-release fertilizer as St. Augustina grass loves them.
Most gardeners use fifty percent of the fertilizer to use immediately on the lawn and keep the other fifty percent to apply after the lawn is half-green. The best way to spread the fertilizer is to use a drop spreader. They are famous for giving even coverage and better results.
Water the Lawn
St. Augustine is known mainly for its drought tolerance, but you will have to water the lawn soon after applying it. Water helps the fertilizer to get absorbed in the soil more quickly and excellently. Water is the best thing you can gift to any plant! St Augustine is no exception.
After six weeks from fertilizing the grass check, how is it holding up. Nevertheless, its performance fertilize it once more to improve the grass’s health and permanent progress.
Tools:
- A Core Aerator
- A Dethatcher
Materials:
- A measuring stick
- A rake
- Fertilizer (Best if you get a slow-release one)
- Drop Spreader
- Lawn Mower
Though St Augustine can grow almost all kinds of soil, still make sure the ground you aim to work on is favorable to growing plants. You will get to know your grass better with time. So don’t worry if you mess up in the beginning. Best of luck!
Final Verdict
Unfortunately, some gardeners struggle to get the best out of St Augustine grass. Sometimes they don’t realize how they should handle these grasses and take care of them. Sometimes the failure comes because of compaction, infertile soil type or thicker thatch layers of the seeds. Nevertheless, there will always be more techniques to make it work and get the best result you can achieve. Follow the basic rules of fertilizing and water them when needed; you will always enjoy the thick tur of St Augustine. We always come up with the best possible way to solve all your gardening problems. Check our website to find more tips and tricks about gardening. Happy planting!