Have you done a soil sample yet? Thats the first thing you should do before anything else before you go adding things to your soil. Also tilling will leave your yard lumpy and uneven. Get someone with a tractor and blade to prepare your yard for sodding. It want take them long at all to have it ready and your lawn will be nice and level. And now that you have your results back from that soil sample and the lawn is nice and even , you are ready for that sod purchase. As for the best prices on sod I cant help there but one other thing you should consider and inquire about is what St. Augustine does good in your area. There are different varieties of it. You should post over on the Lawn Care Forum. There are several guys on that forum that are very informed. One guy is even a sod grower. Hope this helps and sorry about the prices, John

If you could get your camera about 3 inches away from the grass instead of 30,000 feet, I could likely confirm a fungal disease. The best pictures of grass are taken in the shade or on a cloudy day to minimize contrast caused by the sun. If you get close you'll see tan spots surrounded by dark brown spots. That's the disease. I'm guessing you live in Texas and have received more than your average share of rain in the past few weeks. If it is a fungal disease it will get better about 3 weeks after an application of ordinary corn meal at the rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can get corn meal in 50-pound bags at your local feed store. If you cannot get it there look for a grocery store catering to the Hispanic community. Ask for (or find it yourself) corn flour. Don't get the premix used for making tortillas. It should come in 25 pound bags. I scatter it by hand. Flour tends to blow away, so you might want to use a drop spreader to apply it. And it tends to clog a drop spreader which is why I apply by hand. If it is a fungal disease and you live where the temps are in the mid to high 80s already, don't use anything but corn meal. If you live where it's cooler, you could use a chemical fungicide. I've never needed one, so I can't give you any hints. Corn meal has worked for my St Aug for the past 13 years. If you want to reapply after 3 weeks it won't hurt a thing. In fact if you want to reapply the next day it won't hurt anything either. This weekend is an excellent one, timingwise, to apply fertilizer anyway. Corn meal is a weak organic fertilizer. If you only use it on the affected spots, you'll have dark green grass there in a month. Corn meal works by attracting a predatory fungus as part of the decomposition. That fungus consumes the disease fungus and your grass will recover. If your lawn is in full sun, you might want to throw a couple pieces of Floratam St Aug sod down. It's a very fast growing variety that can actually outrun this particular disease. I see the disease in my Floratam, but it never seems to die out like yours is. I still hit it with corn meal because the spots are ugly.

Barry I'm so glad you bumped this back up. Not sure how I missed it (repeatedly), but I disagree with much of what has been said. I don't mean to confuse you, but differing opinions usually do, so sorry in advance. St Aug should be very easy to grow in Houston. It will plow over under around and through any other grassy plants you might get including bermuda. All you have to do is mow it at the mower's highest setting every week or two. Currently it looks like you're mowing at the lowest setting. St Aug never needs to be mowed at anything lower than the highest setting. Some riding mowers will go up to 6 inches and some only go to 2-3 inches. If you're mowing at the mower's high setting now, you need a different mower. St Aug can grow up to 32 inches high and look fantastic (if you like the flowing wheat look). The taller it is the deeper the root system it gets and the (MUCH) better drought resistance you get. There is the occasional weed that will get into a thin spot, but usually you can spot spray those out with atrazine. How many thousand square feet do you have to mow? This looks below average for a new lawn, but when the lawn is so big, anything can happen. The big problem is mowing too low, but it does look like the sod went in with some bit of fungal disease. The 3rd to last picture shows some fungal lesions. I have been using ordinary corn meal to take care of fungal disease in St Aug for the past 13 years. It works for me every time. The application rate is 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. I get it at the local feed store. It takes 3 weeks to see an improvement, but since you've already applied a chemical fungicide, corn meal won't work. Chinch bugs? You absolutely cannot see them from a photo. However, you can wipe your hand across the surface then they will flick up in the air. Put a piece of paper down and see if you can flick them up on it. There are some good YouTube videos showing how to do that. They hit the hottest part of the soil first, so that's usually next to asphalt or concrete. Then almost never begin in the middle of the yard unless you have watering issues. The first place to check would be in your last photo. And just because you might have one insect pest does not automatically make you a candidate for the full catalog of insects. And don't apply insecticide because you see bugs. Insects are not only normal, they're required for healthy soil and turf. You do have watering issues. I assume for such a large lot you have a system in the ground. It needs to be tuned up, because it is missing spots. Place some tuna or cat food cans around in the dry spots and in the green spots. Then time how long it takes to fill the cans. Some high flow systems can fill them in 20 minutes, so keep an eye on them. But some of your cans are going to be pretty dry for a long time. Eventually you want them all to fill at about the same time. Then use the time it takes to fill them as your new watering time for every zone. That's 1 inch of water. The idea is to apply a full inch all at one time. Then wait until the grass is ready for the next drink. Generally speaking when the temps are in the 90s, water once per week. With temps in the 80s water once every 2 weeks, temps in the 70s water every 3 weeks, and once a month the rest of the year. This also promotes deep roots. You don't have clay soil. You might not have perfect soil, but clay is not the issue. Usually the problem is a salt imbalance that causes soil to act like clay. Even sand can act like clay. If you really want to know all about your soil, send a sample to Logan Labs (not TAMU). For $25 they will send you a detailed report. Post that report here and morpheuspa will read it for you telling you what you need to apply, where to find it, how much, when, and how. That's another $200 value for free. Fertilize in May, late September, and again in late November. Don't try to jump the gun in the spring. If you want info on organic lawn care, let me know. I think you should, but not everyone agrees. If you go to a full chemical program, then I would suggest at least once a year to use an organic fertilizer (ordinary corn meal, again) to keep your soil biology happy. So in the long run, taking care of St Aug is easy. You water it depending on the temperature, mow at the highest setting, and fertilize 3x per year. If you do these simple things, you should never need herbicide, insecticide, or fungicide. If you see weeds in the early spring, don't use a weed-n-feed. Use a herbicide with atrazine. Read the label 2x and follow the directions carefully. Photo tip: Take garden pictures on a cloudy day to minimize contrast between bright and shadow.

You picked a doozy of a topic to reference. I don't think I've ever seen so many people piggybacking onto one thread. The spots you see on your grass are the same as those I posted in that other topic. The corn meal should help. Give it 3 full weeks. This is not a shade issue or a watering issue. St Aug will be thinner in the shade but it should be healthy looking with zero spots or yellow blades. Here's a picture of my lawn in San Antonio growing in deeper shade than you had. The point of this picture is 1) no spots, and 2) lots of shade. I took this picture to illustrate chlorosis in St Augustine caused by too much rain. The yellow blades in the center are from the rain. The point you cannot see is that this area looked horrible a month earlier from disease. You could see the soil, leaves, stolons, and spots on the few living blades of grass. Note that you can still see through the turf a little to the stolons underneath. If this was in full sun it would be so packed in the blades would be growing straight up. I'll get a picture of my new lawn in Bandera looking straight down. It's very hard to push a mower through that stuff. Okay I have to comment on the TAMU pamphlet on growing St Augustine. Generally when I see something from TAMU I read it and do the opposite. Truth! Here's my experience this year. I live in Bandera now, so think Texas Hill Country. Our temps ran in the mid to high 90s this year. We got our first rain on Memorial Day and it nearly washed my belongings out of the garage. It was 11 inches in 3 days with most coming the first night. That's too much rain so I was expecting to get some disease. I did but only about 1 square foot was affected. But since Memorial Day I have watering the actual grass one time. Fortunately we got some rain relief last week, so from June 1 to Aug 19 I did not water. Had I followed TAMU I would have watered it every 5 days. Had I followed my own advice (below) I would have watered it every 7 days. What the TAMU people did was over simplify watering, but then they went into too much detail on how to achieve the simple watering. Watering is slightly harder than they suggest but setting it up is easier than they suggest. Here's my take on watering after reading and moderating lawn forums for 10 years. Watering: Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. This is for all turf grass all over the place. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans around the yard, and time how long it takes your sprinkler(s) to fill all the cans. Memorize that time. That will be the time you water from now on. My hose, sprinkler and water pressure takes 8 full hours to fill the cans. Your time will likely be less. I like gentle watering. As for watering frequency, that depends on the daytime air temperature. With temps in the 90s, deep water once per week. With temps in the 80s, deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 70s, deep water once every 3 weeks. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. Note that you have to keep up with quickly changing temps in the spring and fall. This deep and infrequent schedule works in Phoenix and in Vermont, so it should work for you. The reason for deep and infrequent is to grow deeper, more drought resistant roots and to allow the soil to dry completely at the surface for several days before watering again. If it rains, reset your calendar to account for the rainfall. I guess I should add that if it rains 11 inches, reset your calendar back by a month at least. Mowing height. If you read the topic you referenced you saw pix of my dog in the tall grass. (We found her and she's up at the new house in Bandera). From those pictures you can see that tall St Aug is pretty healthy. I seriously did not water, mow, fertilize, or weed that lawn from October 2011 through Feb of 2015. All it got was rainfall. 2011 and 2013 were drought years, and it thrived. Point is keep your st Aug as tall as you can stand it. Set the mower to the highest setting and weld it in place. Contrary to what TAMU says, mowing it low does not make a better turf. Fertilizing. If I was on a rigorous fertilizer schedule I would use organics 5x per year following the federal holiday schedule (Washington's birthday, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving). If I was on a casual schedule I would fertilize on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving. If you decide not to use organic fertilizer, I would still strongly suggest you use it at least once a year in addition to, or in lieu of, one of your fertilizer apps. The general experience of the universe of lawn care websites is that lawns that get no organics for 10 years or so will develop issues where the chemical fertilizer seems to not be effective. One dose of organics will reset the soil biology and the chemical fertilizers will work again. I think you can avoid that issue by preempting it. Organic fertilizer is much less expensive per 1,000 square feet than compost. The fertilizer is also much easier to apply than compost.