Bought my first house in Houston TX which as St. Augustine grass about a year ago, and I’ve never dealt with lawn care before. Right now I have someone who comes by, but they only mow and blow leaves.
I want to improve the lawn and get it looking thicker like my neighbors’, but I honestly don’t know where to start. I’ve tried researching, but there are so many products and methods that it’s overwhelming—and I’m worried about making things worse.
I’m open to hiring someone, but I’d like to understand the basics first. I’ve already had people suggest expensive options like killing everything and re-sodding, which feels a bit extreme.
What would you recommend as a starting point to improve a lawn like this?
by hasreeet
11 Comments
Looks like St. Augustine grass, with a few (oak?) tree seedlings. The key is patience. Some high nitrogen fertilizer, such as 15-0-15 or similar will help it along. The sparseness of the grass suggests there were a lot of weeds at one time. A pre-emergent regimen (3x per year) is a good idea.
It also looks like it is being cut WAAAAY too short. SA likes to be longer.
What you do today will pay off in 2 years.
The other guy said exactly what I’d say.
You can have this looking really good by mid summer.
Yeah the good news is that grass is very forgiving. Just do what everyone said and it’ll fill in fast.
My advise is to start over. I tilled my lawn, leveled and seeded. Now whatever grass is growing was 💯
on me. Whatever was left from previous homeowners is gone.
It’s a battle that can be easily won.. just decide how much time it’s worth to you. Set a plan, do research and diy it.
St. Augustine likes to be cut at 3 inches or higher. All the grass stems grow above grounds so it needs an inch and a half for the stems and an inch a half for the grass blades.
Fill in the cracks and grows in thick.
It looks like you have a lot of shade. That would be the first thing to address. Trim your tree/s so sun can get to the grass. Mow your Saint Augustine at 3.5-4 inches and never scalp it. Make sure you’re not over watering the grass, especially living in Houston. Maybe a little fertilizer a couple time a year (around Easter and 6-8 weeks later). Just doing that will tremendously help your lawn but it may take a couple seasons to catch up to your neighbor.
Thats some H town lookin ish
You can easily get that looking great. However I’m bothered by how people park in the cul de sac lol.
Let it grow! That grass would look awesome at about 3.5-4″. Number one problem most people have is that they cut their grass waaaaay too short.
Pressure was the path will make a huge difference
I live a little north of you and I also had a problem similar to yours where the grass was bare in some areas, and I’m willing to bet its because you have something casting a pretty consistent shadow in that spot. Augustine is pretty good at shadowy areas as long as its “comfortable” which means it needs to be at least 4 inches tall, especially you don’t keep it fertilized.
What I did to fix mine was applied some weed killer to kill the active weeds (preferably you want to use pre emergent, but I moved in too late so I had to use post emergent. I’ll be using pre emergent moving forward) then I dethatched the entire lawn, aerated the lawn, and finally put down some 20-0-20 fertilizer.
This is currently year two and I did everything on time this year and so far my grass is coming in great, some of the patches I had got filled in a little bit, but I don’t expect to see a blanket until about year 3 or 4 maybe. It takes time.