We get calls asking for St. Augustine grass seed for Houston area lawns. Michael explains why St. Augustine seed doesn’t exist and why other seeds like Common Bermuda are likely not what you want in this excerpt from the Houston Grass Podcast. Call us at 281-431-7441 for answers to your questions and a quote for your next project.
Summary of Is There a St. Augustine Grass Seed for Houston Lawns?
Is there a St. Augustine grass seed? There is not. I know it would be great if there were to fill in those little spots in the yard. Is it worth the effort to go and cut out a space for the new block of grass, or several blocks of grass or whatever?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could just scratch the dirt, throw a few seeds out there and watch them grow? But unfortunately, there is not. I am not sure of the science behind it, but I know that when you look at St. Augustine, and certainly certain times of the year, you see that it produces that little seed head, that little stalk of multiple seeds on it, that it kicks off.
And it seems that you would, somebody would figure out how to get those off the stalks and put them out there to sell. But I don’t know if those seeds are sterile or that no one has just found an economical way to harvest something like that. I don’t know exactly what it is behind that, but I do know that it doesn’t exist. You can’t go online and buy a bag of St. Augustine grass seed.
Our Farm Uses St. Augustine Plugs to Replant
When we plant 10, 20, 30 acres at a time at our farm, when we’re redoing areas and stuff like that, we take the same blocks of grass that we would sell to you out here, and we feed them into a machine that chops them up into four-inch pieces or so, drops them on the ground, then a roller comes behind them and smashes them down.
They’re spaced out a few inches apart. Then we water them profusely, just like you have to when you buy the 16 by 24 inch blocks of grass from us. So there is no seed. It’s called vegetative propagation, meaning it takes a chunk of the plant to start a new one.
So at the very least, you have to use plugs, which we don’t encourage anyone to do because it’s so hard to get it kicked off. Farms have the chemicals and the expertise to be able to fight the weeds in the meantime.
Around the Gulf Coast, Weeds Fill In Empty Ground Very Fast
But the problem with plugs is that wherever there is not a piece of grass, weeds, just naturally occurring seeds that are blowing around out in Mother Nature, will land on that empty dirt and kick up a weed and you’ve got to be able to battle those in the meantime until that grass gets closed across.
Homeowners can’t get their hands on most of the chemicals that these farms use, and they certainly don’t have the expertise to do that. So plugs are just something that’s not a good homeowner application, at least in our part of the world. I don’t know, maybe other parts of the US work for other types of grass.
Maybe some of the cool season grasses or something like that. But it’s not here for the Texas Gulf Coast. So solid sodding is certainly the way to go. I know I’m in the business of selling grass, so I’m supposed to say that, but if it were my yard or my friend’s yard, this is what I would do. Anyway, just wanted to touch on St. Augustine grass seed.
Call Us for Grass Sod with Quality Second to None in the Houston Area
All of our grass comes from our family farm outside of Bay City, where we’ve been in the grass business since 1981. We can deliver your grass to your project area and we also offer professional installation services. Call us at 281-431-7441 for answers to your questions and a quick quote for your project.