Question
Hi,
We live in Austin, TX and just re-sodded our dead lawn in the backyard 3 weeks ago now, and it is not growing yet. I believe we prepared the right way, we killed everyting with round-up, a week later tilled up the yard, the next week brought in 3 cubic yards of fresh soil from the local landscapers nursery to cover a 600sq ft yard, and layed St. Augustine sod the next day. It has been watered religously, and the dirt underneath has stayed moist. The first pallet we got looked OK, mostly green. However we did not order enough and I had to get an additional 1/2 pallet of grass the following day - it looked MUCH better and took off growing immediately - we've already mowed it and you can't even see the lines anymore. (my husband said it must be a different kind of St. Augustine) But the first pallet of grass is not growing at all, the edges of the squares are brown and weeds are starting to grow through it already! I called the nursery we got it from and they said the first pallet must have came from a grower that got a late freeze and put it back into dormancy so it will take a little longer. I even had them come out and look at it, and they said it was starting to take root, but I would think that after 3 weeks, it would catch up with the other already. I was told not to fertilize it, but I don't know of anything else to do. Will the different grasses ever blend together? If so how long will this take? We re-sodded becasue I wanted an instant green lawn, but now I have a 1/2 thick green lawn and 1/2 barely alive looking. Any ideas? Thanks!


Answer
Stephanie,

Thanks for the question.  Your nursery is probably correct.  When warm season grasses begin to come out of dormancy it expends much of it's stored energy into the cells in the leaf of the plant so that photosynthesis can occur and it can start producing new energy which it needs for both root and shoot growth.  

When the stored energy has been made soluble and moved into the cells of the leaf it is susceptable to being lost in a late freeze.  If the cells of the leaf freeze they essentially die when the water within them expands and the cell walls burst.

When this process occurs and stored energy is lost, the plant must rely more on the roots for energy...however as you know, sod has no roots, or at least very short ones, when it is first layed.  

Your nursery you bought from is also correct by saying that the grass will probably grow out of it.  As far as how long...thats a guessing game to some extent.  Unfortunately you do not know if the sod was hit by a late freeze once or if this is the second or third time.  Each time it is hit, the more the plant must rely on it's root system.  Seeing that is has been almost a month now since you laid your sod, you should begin to see a recovery soon.
Should the grass not recover I would expect some retribution from the nursery.

I would be surprised if the nursery would sell two different cultivars of St. Augustinegrass becuse of situations like yours were customers may need more later on.  Even if this was the case, it should not make that much of a difference once the two are established.  

As I said, the two halves of your yard should blend together nicely before summer is in full season.  I do think that you made the correct decision in sodding your yard.  Even with the sod being slow to take you are still miles ahead of where you would be if you had seeded it.

As a final note, during the establishment period it is best to use a good quality starter fertilizer.  One that has increased levels of phosphorus to aid in root developement.  But dont get carried away, you can apply too much phosphorus.  

Hope this helps.  I would be interested in knowing how things turn out.  

Thanks,

Turfnut2