Grow St. Augustine From Seed?

Is It Feasible to Grow St. Augustine Grass from Seed?

Call 281-431-7441 for more information.  The short answer to this question is no.  There’s no economically feasible way to grow St. Augustine from seed.  In this video, Houston Grass South Owner Michael Romine explains why.

This is a summary of the video:

‘Is there a St. Augustine seed?’ is one of the commonly asked questions. If you do look at existing St. Augustine, especially certain times of year, it does produce a seed head. It looks like one of the leaves; it sticks up, it’s very coarse, and if you walk on them, they’re like wooden sticks out here. They do . . . it does take a little bit of pressure for them to give.

There are normally several dozen seeds sticking off the side of that seed head. However, no one to date, has come up with an economically feasible way to harvest those seeds, bag it, and sell it. The only way to propagate St. Augustine is from existing St. Augustine.

Reel mower cutting Houston Grass South turfgrass before harvesting at our family farm in Bay City TX
Reel mower cutting Houston Grass South turfgrass before harvesting at our family farm

That means that you’d have to do it the way we plant at our farm, 10, 20, 30 acres at a time.  We feed the 16”x24” blocks of St. Augustine grass into a machine and cut it up into 4” to 6” pieces and sprinkle them out in our fields, not right next to one another, obviously.

Then we roll them down in the dirt and then begin to water them. The farm can do that a lot easier than a homeowner, because the farm has access to the chemicals and has the know how, how to keep the weeds out for the 6 to 9 months that it takes for that grass plugs to grow together.

If a homeowner would try to do that, it would be an uphill fight with all the weeds that would try to come up in the bare areas.

So it’s not economically feasible right now for homeowners to grow St. Augustine from seed and it’s a long, time consuming process for homeowners to grow a St. Augustine grass lawn from plugs.  The best way to install a St. Augustine grass lawn is to purchase grass sod from a high-quality sod dealer like Houston Grass South.

Houston Grass South distributes St. Augustine, Bermuda and Zoysia grass sod grown on our family farm in Bay City, TX, where we’ve been growing top-quality grass for more than 30 years.  The care and attention to detail that we use in growing our grass means that you’re helping the success of your turfgrass project by using our grass.  We feel that our grass sod is the best sold in the Houston area.

We’re located in Arcola, TX, just a few miles east of Sienna Plantation and just off Highway 6 on FM 521.  We deliver all over the Houston area and you can also pick up your grass at our office if you’d like.  Do you want to “barefoot-test” different varieties of grass?  We have sample plots of each grass variety at our office for that purpose.  Call us at 281-431-7441 today or send us a message using our quote request form.