How to Plant Palmetto St. Augustine Grass in the Houston Area
In this video, Michael describes how to plant Palmetto grass in the Houston and Texas Gulf Coast areas. If you need top quality Palmetto grass, please call our office at 281-431-7441.
Summary of the How to Plant Palmetto Grass Video
How to plant Palmetto St. Augustine grass? Again this does apply to all of our grasses I would say.
Now if you’re planting Palmetto grass, you’re probably planting grass in the shade, and I might tell you to restrict the times of year that you’re planting it. Ideally it is toughest to grow grass in the shade so the best time of year to plant any grass is March, April, and May. So, I would try to push someone to stick to those months if I’m planting grass in the shade. But other than that, planting grass is planting grass is planting grass.
Step 1 to Plant Palmetto Grass
The more you can fluff up the soil, the more you can till, the more good soil you can bring in, the thicker you can make that layer, the better. These are all in perfect, best-case scenarios. Most people that plant our grass, they take out the grass that’s there or they have a new house, a new build, and they’ve got nothing but dirt there to begin with. If you can add some good topsoil to what’s there, that will help the grass stay healthier longer with less water and less fertilization and everything, if you can bring in some good topsoil.
A lot of people do not have the luxury of bringing in a six inch layer of good composted garden soil mix whether it’s a brand new house or an existing house because that means you’ve got to haul off a lot of dirt and it’s just not feasible in most cases. But anything you can do like I said, to break up the dirt that’s there and incorporate some good topsoil into it before you plant is money and time and effort well spent.
Step 2 to Plant Palmetto Grass
Then it’s like laying tile, once you do all the preparation work you just try to butt the pieces up as tight next to one another as you can. Any gap that you leave in the pieces is going to allow the sunlight to hit the native topsoil and then you’re going to get weeds growing in that area.
Before your new Palmetto grass can cover the area, weeds will always beat it to the punch. And then you end up with probably common Bermuda Grass, maybe some Nut Grass. Those are the two biggest culprits and then no telling what else. So, get that grass as tight up next to one another as you possibly can and then water, water, water.
Step 2 to Plant Palmetto Grass
Slowly applied water is absolutely necessary. The time of year determines how much watering you’re going to have to do. The rule of thumb most of the year is two inches of water the day you lay it down or the next day. If it’s July you better do it the day you lay it down.
A lot of people have asked well, what about if I just apply it by hand? You can’t just dump volumes of water on it at one time. You want slowly applied water, so you put the sprinkler out there for usually six, eight, 10 hours.
The last time I timed it and put a rain gauge out there it took about eight hours to put out two inches of water and that’s about what you want to do and then you never have to water it like that again. But for that first week you’re still watering an hour or two a day, and then that second week maybe you’re going to every other day and it backs off from there a little bit.
Soil Preparation and Watering at Crucial for Any Grass
Like I’ve said, soil preparation and water afterwards are probably the biggest things that you can do for any grass. Palmetto, I would say that the big difference is try to stick to that March, April, or May because you need everything going for you that you can, and March, April, and May is certainly the best time of year to plant grass.
Summertime, you run into several different funguses and some different insects that can be problems in the summer and you don’t need that stacked against you when you’re trying to plant grass in the shade.
Contact Houston Grass South at 281-431-7441
We’re proud of the top-quality grass we deliver to our customers — it comes from our family farm outside Bay City. You can also pick up grass at our office just off Highway 6 a few miles east of Sienna Plantation. We also offer grass installation services. Call us or send us an email through our contact form.
