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You do not need to till. In fact if you have any St Aug left at all it will eventually come back completely if you use good management practices. St Augustine will send runners out about 10 feet every growing season. It will not be very dense in the first year but it will the second year. You can speed that process up considerably by placing a few pieces of sod around. Of course if you can afford it you can have an instant lawn by completely resodding. St Augustine does not come in seed, so sod is your only choice.

Are you sure you had chinch bugs or could it have been drought neglect? St Aug will die completely if it goes unwatered in full sun for a few weeks. It could have been a combination of both with the drought stress making the grass more susceptible to pests.

Most people find it easier to spray to kill weeds before sodding. There are two kinds of sprays for two kinds of weeds. There is a third kind of spray that will handle both kinds of weeds at once. Again, most people jump directly to the spray that will kill everything. The most popular name is Round-Up but any product with glyphosphate in it will do the same thing. Spray the weeds and try very hard to keep the overspray off of the current St Augustine or it will die.

Spray the weeds and let them die for a few days. If any weeds sprout in a week, spray again. Rake all the dead stuff up and your soil is ready for sod. Don't get the sod and then start the spraying process. Sod sitting on a pallet is stressed enough already. It needs to go on the ground immediately upon getting it home. Then you need to press the sod down to get good contact with the underlying soil. Roots will not grow through the air, so press it down. If you have a large area, rent a water fillable roller. If you have a small area, then just walk on every square inch of the sod to press it down. If the sod is dormant, water it once for about 10 minutes and then treat it normally. You do not need fertilizer until after the grass has been mowed for the second time this spring.

Over the years of reading this forum, I've been able to summarize the best practices of the successful grass growers.

Watering: Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means for an hour at a time. Infrequently means monthly during the cool season and no more than weekly in the heat of summer. There are a few factors that affect this, like your soil type, humidity, rainfall, shade, and the height of your grass. In Houston weekly should be plenty. By watering like this you'll give the soil a chance to dry out completely at the surface but remain moist deeper in the soil. This encourages deeper rooting and more drought resistance in case you leave and the grass doesn't get watered.

Mowing: Mulch mow at your mower's highest setting. St Augustine never ever needs to be mowed at a lower setting. I usually recommend to St Aug owners that they weld the mower at the highest setting because eventually someone will come along and try to do you a favor by lowering the mower to the lowest setting. How high you mow is up to you and your spouse if any. My wife insists that the highest setting looks shaggy, but I'm in 80% shade so the turf is not that dense and it does look a little shaggy compared to turf in full sun. So we compromise and I mow at the second highest setting.

Fertilizer: Fertilize regularly. If you are using synthetic fertilizer you can start with the second mowing of real grass (not weeds). In Houston that might be in March. You can fertilize again on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. Those are easy dates to remember. If you choose to use organic fertilizer, start on Washington's Birthday, then Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. With organic you can start earlier and do a summer application. You can't do that with synthetic.

If you follow that plan you should not have weeds because the St Augustine will be so dense.

Thanks for the reply. Yes I'm almost sure it was chinch bugs and the drought conditions made them worse. Just have a couple of questions. Do I need to try and rake up of all the dead St. Aug? Should I treat for chinch bugs first, or will they have all perished during the winter?

Are you sure it is dead? This was a particularly cold winter so the St Augustine is more dormant than usual.

I tend to use more organic methods so I am somewhat biased against using pesticides/herbicides. Another option is using cultivars of St. Augustine that are resistant to chinch bugs such as Floratam and a more recent variety, Captiva (I haven't personally seen this so I can't vouch for it). I would also follow what Dchall stated above.

Here is a link that might be useful: captiva

Thanks for posting this. WE've been trying to figure out this same thing all day. Almost certain it was chinch bugs that got our yard last summer too. So, I'm also trying to figure out if we treat for chinch now or if they die out over the winter.