L'erba Augustine si diffonde sia tramite rizomi che stoloni, il che significa che manda dei corridori sia sopra che sotto terra. Normalmente è un diffusore molto aggressivo - infatti, la maggior parte delle volte sento domande su come fermarla! St. Augustine è un'erba di stagione calda che cresce bene in pieno sole e in un terreno umido in zone calde e costiere.

Se avete grandi punti spogli, potreste voler propagare l'erba invece di aspettare che si diffonda. Poiché i semi sono così difficili da raccogliere, la St. Augustine è disponibile in commercio solo sotto forma di spine, rametti o zolle. Potete comprarli, o potete diffonderla voi stessi scavando piccole spine o rametti da un'area stabilita e piantandoli nei punti spogli.

1. Clear and level the area to be planted. Sod roots will not grow through existing grass to reach the soil. You need direct contact with the soil.
2. Get rid of weeds. Start by watering the area to encourage weeds to grow and seeds to germinate. Water daily about 5 to 15 minutes, twice a day if you can. Do that for a week and spray all the weeds/grass with RoundUp. Continue watering for another week to sprout new weeds. At the end of the second week, spray the RoundUp again and you’re ready for the sod.
3. Be ready to lay the sod on the day the sod arrives. Buy the sod from a retailer who sells large quantities on a daily basis. For example I see pallets of sod sitting at Lowe’s and Home Depot for a week or more. Don’t buy from them. Find a nursery that sells it. The nursery I found in San Antonio sells 14 pallets every day, and their price was half of what HD and Lowe’s sells it for.
4. Lay the sod in a bricklayer pattern so that each piece overlaps the previous like bricks. You can kick the sod up against the previous pieces so there are no gaps. If you need to cut it to fit around an object, use a knife or machete.
5. After it is all down, it needs to be either rolled down (rent a water fillable roller) or walked on. This is to ensure the bottom of the sod touches the top of the underlying soil.
6. Water it enough to moisten the sod and the top surface of the underlying soil. It should never be soggy or mushy. Water it every day and twice a day if you can, again never letting it get mushy. Watering time during the 2 weeks will be from 5 to 15 minutes each time unless you have a high flow, in-ground watering system. Then water less. If you are getting rain, then you don’t need to water that day.
7. In about 2 weeks try to pull up some of the sod. It should not pull up at all as the roots will have knit into the soil. At this point you can back off on the watering frequency and go to watering every other day for a longer period of 30 minutes. Put some tuna or cat food cans in the yard and time how long it takes to fill all the cans. That is 1 inch of water. That will become your new watering time from now on. Every sprinkler/zone/hose/house is different, so you have to time your own system. Once you have applied an inch of water, it should go for at least a week without watering again. Keep an eye on it, though. If any part of it looks dry, water immediately the full inch.
8. When the grass gets up to 6 inches tall, then mow it back to 4 inches (the highest setting on your mower). This will be a weekly chore.
9. Don’t fertilize until the summer heat breaks in October. I use only organic fertilizer, but that’s a different topic. Then fertilize again in late November or December.