St Augustine Grass Seed

You and every other person who has wanted a quick lush lawn of St Augustine grass has been told that you can't get it by planting seed.  Some even say that St Augustine grass doesn't make seeds. Some say the seeds St Augustine grass does make are not viable. The truth of the matter is that St Augustine grass does make seeds and plenty of them in the right conditions. Getting a nice lush yard of the stuff though is better handled through just installing turf.

These were hand harvested from some St Augustine plugs that decided to make some seeds.  These are from one stalk and it was a stalk I had previously mowed down and this was what remained of it.

I got about a square foot of turf from a reliable and healthy lawn and transplanted it in various places in my back yard. I split it up into 6 pieces and plugged them in.  My hope is that it will spread as St Augustine does and take over the yard. This may take a while since it seems to spread about 4-8 inches a year with the occasional long runner which can go over a foot.  It's these runners that I hope will start proliferating the yard and set up new areas of St Augustine.  After a while I also plan to pull plugs and spread manually.  Within 5 years I hope to have a full yard. We'll see about the front eventually.

For now I have planted these in some dirt inside to see if they will sprout.  I'm curious how viable the seeds really are.  There is definitely some promise here though as most of these are full plump seeds.

If you've ever had success with St Augustine seeds please let me know.  I'd love to see how it turned out.

Sean and Addi Getting Along

Sometimes these two actually get along.  Of course it's only when they're done playing and not getting in eachother's way.  They really have settled in though.  They're perfectly ok with finding us while we're busy doing something on any electronic device and curling up on top of us and either demanding to be petted or just falling asleep.

Looking at this picture I almost see a racoon but not quite.  The sun is hitting them just right to put a shine on them and make them look a little different than they normally do (except for the napping part.)

These guys have all of the signals that they trust us though.  Some of what you hear can be misleading on this matter.  One guy online was saying that you should never rub their belly.  Again this seems to be a trust issue.  As long as they aren't in play mode both of these guys are just fine with it.  In play mode however they may take your hand to be a toy and attack it.  They don't hiss or actually try to hurt and after a second they go from attack to groom but their mood plays a big role in how they react to things.

We also make sure to play with them a bit and give the rare treat (maybe once a week or so) to keep them engaged.  Their feeding times are automatic and they know there will always be more food coming.  Often they don't eat all of their food right away, leaving some for later.

They still like their cat grass.  We don't leave it inside though so they don't overdo it.  Not sure they can but we like to monitor how much grass they eat or play with.  Sometimes they'd rather pull it up and bat it around.  They are super different though to the point I wouldn't have thought they had grown up together but I guess that's probably true with most siblings.

Cat Grass

Grass seems to want to grow just about anywhere it can find that has even the slightest bit of dirt. Here we were in Galveston checking out Jean Lafitte's old castle grounds.  You can see the wall footing from part of the structure here with grass growing in and out of the footprint.  Even in the shadow, although patchy, it's taking root.

Since we got cats my wife has decided they need a bit of greenery in their lives.  So we ordered some seeds and got one of the pots that isn't currently growing anything and planted some cat grass.  That's fancy talk for wheat, oats, and barley. If I let it grow, we could even harvest grain from it but I don't think that's the idea here.  Cats are high end carnivores and don't take to salad eating much but a little green is apparently also good for their gut health.

I'm going to grow it outside for the most part and since our house faces West, the East side is in the back and gets some good morning sun on our patio.  I don't want it just out in the yard so the pot will sit there.  With proper watering and patience we should have some greenery for the cats in a couple weeks.  Again if I let it grow more we would have grain in a few months.  Might try that with a little of it just to see how it goes.  There's plenty of seed  in the bag.

Also probably going to see about getting better grass for the yard.  The stuff they have in there now is patchy and not very attractive.  It's sod though so maybe it will eventually grow in better.  At the previous house we had St. Augustine grass.  That's what I grew up having at my grandparents houses.  the both of them swore by it.  So, we'll see.

St Augustine Die Back

A coworker was telling me about her St. Augustine dying back in her back yard. Mine does the same thing when the heat gets to be a little too much. As far as I can tell it just needs a little more shade in really hot weather. Unfortunately so do most of the plants around here. Fortunately it has been a rather cool summer with only August really heating up a lot. Probably have a few more weeks of heat before things start producing again. It's at times like these when I wish I had the money to install a real green house with a little climate control.