San Antonio St Augustine
SA Landscaping is your Local St Augustine Sod Installer
Advantages: St Augustine grass makes a beautiful light green to dark green turf. It forms a dense turf that grows well in most soils throughout the south.
St Augustine also has good shade tolerance even under the beautiful live oak trees the south is so famous for. Great shade tolerance is one of the reasons it is preferred over bermudagrass. Bermudagrass has very poor shade tolerance and will only grow a couple of feet with a moderate to heavy shade.
Disadvantages: St Augustine grass has poor wear tolerance. It will hold up well under to normal traffic of a home lawn, but not under the heavy traffic of an athletic field. The coarse texture makes it unsuitable for golf courses and is only used in a few places. St Augustine also has poor drought tolerance and will not always hold its color without irrigation.
St Augustine Types
Amerishade
Amerishade is the most shade-tolerant St. Augustine grass available. It has a semi-dwarf growth habit with smaller blades and shorter internodes, setting it apart from other varieties of St. Augustine. It also has a rapid rate of spread with less vertical growth that other St. Augustines, producing approximately 50% fewer clippings, reducing the mowing frequency. Amerishade is a dark green grass with a medium texture.
DelMar
Delmar St. Augustine is vigorous, dark emerald green, medium-coarse textured lawn grass. It is one of the most cold-tolerant varieties of St. Augustine making it a great choice in colder climates such as Dallas/Ft. Worth, and has very good shade tolerance. It also grows well in full sun. Delmar turns golden brown in its dormancy. Delmar tests at the top of National testing in overall quality among St. Augustines. Delmar is the highest-ranking & cold-tolerant, St. Augustine Decline Disease Free St. Augustine grass available.
Floratam
As its name implies, Floratam St. Augustine is the result of collaboration between the University of Florida and Texas A&M University. Released by the Florida and Texas Agricultural Experiment Stations in the early 1970s, Floratam St. Augustine is a chinch bug and SAD virus resistant variety of St. Augustine. Floratam is a hardy and coarse textured grass with wider and longer blades than common St. Augustine.
A particularly vigorous variety, Floratam establishes ground cover rapidly and fares better in flood and drought conditions than many other varieties. Floratam is the most drought tolerant of St. Augustine varieties. The earliest strain of the grass that would ultimately become Floratam (Florida-23, originally called Roselawn selection #9 in 1953) actually came from Belle Glade, Florida, where King Ranch Turf today produces significant annual square yardage of this highly desirable warm weather grass.
History – Today the original 1972 Floratam foundation stock for the state of Texas is still grown as pure registered stock on our farms in Texas.
Floratam is particularly suited to applications in the southern part of Texas and is a good choice for residents of the coastal plain.
Tolerates herbicides well
Highly resistant to chinch bug injury
SAD virus tolerant
Fewer weeds
Thrives in various soil conditions
The most drought-tolerant of the St Augustine Varieties
Palmetto
With a finer texture than many other St. Augustine varieties, Palmetto® St. Augustine is hardy and grows in a wide variety of conditions and soil types. With its vivid emerald color, Palmetto® is a good choice for lawns and commercial applications. In addition to its heat and drought tolerance, Palmetto® has been observed to be somewhat cold tolerant than a typical St. Augustine grass.
Beautiful emerald color
Hardy (thrives with minimal maintenance)
Shade tolerant
Drought, heat, and cold tolerant
Raleigh
The North Carolina Experiment Station released cold-hardy Raleigh St. Augustine in 1980. Although finer textured (with a narrower blade) and more tolerant of shade than Floratam, Raleigh develops dense ground coverage. Raleigh St. Augustine is medium green in color, SAD virus resistant and is best grown in heavier clay soils.
Medium green color
Cold tolerant
Shade tolerant
SAD Virus resistant
Develops dense ground coverage
History – Our farms grew the first Raleigh Foundation Stock in Texas. The stock was shipped from North Carolina to Texas, expanded as Foundation Stock at our farms, and then distributed to the Texas Growers through the Texas Sod Producers Association.
Today, Raleigh is the most widely grown variety of St. Augustine in Texas.
