kerosene and a match to my lawn

[septuagint]

Hi, I currently have centipede in my front lawn (columbia,sc), but it is really patchy and crappy. I put in a sprinkler system last year and I reseeded many of the patched areas. I fertilized the areas as well, but it really only grew in a couple places.

What I really want to do (since I have 2 big honkin' oak trees in the front) is to replace the centipede with st augustine since much of the front yard is shaded.

How should I go about doing this? I was told by many that you cannot get st augustine seed in north america, only plugs and sod.

If I sod, do I have to rent a sod cutter and take out everything? If I do plugs, can I just plug everywhere throughout the lawn amidst the centipede grass?

Or should I just go buy some kerosene and light my yard on fire and roast weenies? ;)

-- septuagint

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[Steve Wolfe]

It's not just in North America, I don't believe, there isn't a really economically viable way to harvest St. Augustine seed, from what I recall.

There are various ways you could go. On the less labor-intensive side, spray the grass with roundup, let it die (including the roots). Once it's dead, set your mower as low as it will go, and get rid of all of the dead stuff. Apply new seed/plugs/sod, water, and wait. The new grass will grow, and everything will be fine. Aerating the soil probably wouldn't hurt.

Now, if you really do feel like putting in additional labor, you could either till the dead stuff under, or use a sod cutter to remove it. If you till, then you have to go back and smooth and level. If you remove with a sod cutter, you need to cart all of that away. Either way, it's a lot of work.

steve

[Steveo]

That might work if he could find seed and a slice seeder, seed won't germinate on dead centipede grass. One other caveat is the efficacy of round-up on st Augustine, but since he's only trying to fill in shade blighted turf that's not a big problem.

He'll need to strip it and shallow till if he's gonna sod it.