Using St. Augustine Grass Plugs

Should You Use St. Augustine Grass Plugs to Sod Your Lawn?

Call 281-431-7441 for more information or a quote.  In this video, Houston Grass South Owner Michael Romine talks about using St. Augustine grass plugs or using sod pieces in a checkerboard pattern instead of laying solid sod.

Here’s a summary of Michael’s video:

How to plant St. Augustine grass plugs or how do I checkerboard a yard? That is a question that we get asked occasionally as well. We understand budgets and being mindful. You’ve just bought a new house and you don’t want to spend 1,000, $2,000 on the backyard.

Installing Houston Grass Sod
Installing Houston Grass Sod

So the checkerboarding is where you skip every other space with the grass and grass plugs are the, basically a four inch piece of the St. Augustine that’s been cut up that you would just basically sprinkle around, and then water, and kinda hope for the best and yes eventually the checker boarding or the plugs are going to spread.

At our farm, when they plant acres and acres at a time that’s exactly what they do. They cut it up into four inch plugs, and they put it out there, and they run over it with a roller, and they water it but they have the equipment and expertise and the access to all the chemicals that it takes to fight the weeds for probably close to 9 to 12 months that it’s going to take before that area’s going to be totally covered in St. Augustine and you get rid of the weeds.

But in the meantime like I said it’s an uphill battle of keeping that grass clean and trying to push it to grow together.  If you were doing that in your yard, if you were doing the checker board, mowing is going to be like driving down a bunch of railroad tracks and it would hurt you on a mower, and scalp it off, and leave ugly areas and then the plugs.

I’ve never seen anyone try that in a residential scenario but I would certainly steer you away from doing that. The money that you save on the grass upfront is going to be negligible compared to the amount of time and money that you would spend on chemicals and time to make the grass good and clean like you’re going to want it. To make it look like you planted the whole thing solid from the first place, which is what you’re ultimately trying to get to.

So you may save some money on installation if you use sod plugs or try to checkerboard sod pieces, but you’ll spend much more than you save over the first year as you try to keep the weeds from growing in the bare spots between the sod pieces or sod plugs.

Houston Grass South is located just a few miles east of Sienna Plantation in Arcola, TX.  We’re on FM 521 (McKeever Road), just off Highway 6.  We deliver grass sod all over the Houston area or you can pick up your fresh sod at our office.  Please call us at 281-431-7441 or use our contact form for more information or a quote for your project.