I live around Clearwater Florida. This is my backyard. It gets full sun for most of the day. I do have a sprinkler system that reaches this area. Any chance at saving my yard at this point, or is it best to start over? I was hoping to seed, rather than SOD, but haven’t seen many yards start or be repaired from seed in this area. I’m new to the area and not familiar with the grass in Florida, or how best to maintain it. Any advice would be appreciated. My front yard seems to be holding up fine and I’ve been treating them both the same.
by clevedawgpound556
5 Comments
You’re in St. Augustine grass country now which is the standard for Clearwater but the bad news is you generally can’t grow it from seed because the commercial varieties are sterile. If you see bags of Florida Lawn Seed at the big box store it is usually Bahia or Bermuda which looks like pasture grass or requires high-maintenance reel mowing to look decent. Looking at that dirt patch I’d say start over because there isn’t enough healthy root structure left to revive and you’ve likely got a soil compaction or chinch bug issue that wiped it out in the first place.
Before you drop a fortune on pallets of sod you should seriously consider if you want to maintain that much thirsty turf in full Florida sun. I’d suggest amending that sandy soil with some heavy compost and shrinking the lawn footprint with some curved beds of natives like Coontie or blanket flower that can actually handle the heat. You can throw a photo of this mess into the GardenDream web app to see what it would look like with some actual landscape beds versus just wall-to-wall sod which might save you from making the same expensive mistake twice.
Looks like a fresh start is needed to be seeded
Start over
Don’t seed in Florida, go with sod. Long story short you’ll thank me later
All I could see is the moldy fence