Thank you for the specifics on your location. That really helps. Since we have you captive, with the serious drop in driving, can you see Catalina every day now?

St Augustine will recover quickly from minor damage inflicted by pets or kids. Marathon would have to be reseeded or resodded to recover. In your area you could probably do that any time of year without issue.

Fescue (Marathon) is a greener grass than St Aug at similar fertilization rates. With kids and pets I would stick to organic fertilizers. I don't know of they still allow horses in the Rolling Hills, but if so, the local feed stores should be active with a variety of grain type fertilizers. I use alfalfa pellets at 2 pounds per 100 square feet. A 50-pound bag should cost $15 more or less. This stuff turns St Augustine deep green, especially in the shade. An alternative I use is corn meal at less than $10 per bag. Call Centinela Feed, Lomita Feed, and Gee Gee Equine to check prices and availability.

Care for either of these grasses is similar. Water deeply and infrequently (search this forum for more details). Mow at the mower's highest setting. Fertilize on Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and since you're where you are, you could fertilize again on Washington's Birthday.

Thank you so much for your prompt response, I somehow missed it until now.

As for Catalina island. I can’t see it from my home and with the stay at home order, I literally have been at home every day. Therefore , I haven’t had the opportunity to check . Does this make a difference in terms of what grass is best at this moment?

I just realized we have closer to 1100 sq ft of needed grass rather than the 700sq ft. I have read different information regarding which one strives best in mostly shaded areas but it’s all conflicting. We are now in May and I would say my back yard is mostly shade by 2:00 pm

Does it make a difference on Marathon 2 or St Augustine ? Would one be best suited for the shade ?

I am leaning towards st Augustine. However, my husband really likes Marathon 2 because of its softness and my daughter loving to lay on it. I’ve been told that with care both are equally great grasses for our area. Would you this is true ?

They do still have horses at Rolling Hills estates , which I live no more than 8 min away from . I will look into organic fertilizer. Thank you for this information ! :)

Seeing Catalina has nothing to do with grass. It always seemed like a gift to have a day when we could see it. I remember once seeing it from the Huntington Library in Pasadena. I grew up in Riverside in the 50s, so it was more common to see Catalina before the smog arrived en masse. I worked in Hawthorne in the 70s and seeing the island was a very rare occurrence.

So, back to the lawn. I like St Augustine because it spreads and refills damaged spots without having to reseed, like Marathon. My St Augustine seems to do very well in the shade of our trees.

What great memories. Yes , occasionally we get day’s where the view is very clear (depending on the smog ).

I ended up going with the St Augustine .

Now Im concerned with the caring of new laid out sod. I do have a sprinkler system . Temperatures at the moment around between 70-75 degrees.

what would be your recommendation?

If they rolled the sod down, you're good to go. If they did not roll the sod down, please go out and walk on every square inch of grass to ensure the bottom of the sod is touching the top of the soil. Roots will not grow through the air to reach the moist soil below. But now that I think about this, do NOT walk on the grass if the underlying soil is wet.

For the first 2 weeks after sodding, water it very lightly (5 minutes?), just enough to moisten the soil below the sod, 2 times per day (for your area and temperatures). The soil underneath should always be firm and not mushy. If it becomes mushy, then back off on the time you're watering. After 2 weeks, try lifting some of the sod. It should be knit to the ground by then. Once the sod and soil are connected, you can back off on watering frequency and go up on the duration. St Aug is pretty durable, but it will let you know when it needs to be watered. Look for the blades to fold together. The color will change, too. If you see any wilting anywhere, water it immediately. It might pop back to life in the evening, but water it anyway. It should go a couple days between watering. Keep watering it longer each time and watch to see how long it goes before wilting. When it can go a full week with no watering, then it is time to time your sprinklers.

Place some cat food or tuna cans around the yard and turn on the sprinklers. Time how long it takes to fill them all. That will be your new sprinkler timing from now on. One inch is considered to be deep watering. Many people, especially in CA and FL, will divide that up to water 1/7-inch once every day. That is dead wrong. Watering like that develops very shallow roots which cannot stand to miss a day of watering. Someday you will be on vacation and your sprinkler system will shut down or break an emitter, and your lawn will die. However, if the grass has deep roots from infrequent, deep watering, it can go for weeks without needing water. For example I have watered my lawn once this year. Mother Nature happens to be helping out. We got 2 inches of rain last week, so I don't anticipate needing to water again until some time in June. And our temps are in the high 80s and 90s.

When the grass gets up to about 5 inches, you can mow with the mower on the highest setting. Don't mow wet grass or if the soil is soggy.

You can use the alfalfa fertilizer any time you want.

Thank you so much for the watering recommendations!

We watered it twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening for 5 minutes. We noticed some spots need more water so we will work on those areas . St Augustine definitely let us know. We will now start watering it once a day. I definitely want to get to that point where it can go weeks without needing water. I’m excited about that!

Today marks the 14th day and they have already done the first cut for us. They asked us to not water it in preparation for the cut. And seemed to be cut At the highest level because it is still long.

However , I’m concerned that it feels and looks bumpy. The grass /growth fees uneven. Some spots are higher than others. Literally like little hills . This is not what I was expecting from new sod . Is this normal? I’m sure you can tell in the picture .

Our gardener assured us it will even out with the next cut. He is to come back in 2 weeks. I want to trust him but feel it looks wayyy too bumpy for being new sod.

What can your experience tell me.

By the way...They did roll it twice. The day they installed it and the day after.

They also used a rototiller a week prior to installation. When we purchased our home we had no grass just pure soil.

They should not have rototilled it. That will haunt you from now on. As you have noticed, it looks bumpy. It will get worse for about 3 years as the rototilled soil settles. What they should have done was to level the surface and NOT till it. Just scrape off the hills and fill the holes and leave everything else as it was. Rolling is not a cure for this. The reason for rolling was to ensure the roots on the sod touch the soil underneath. Otherwise it looks pretty great.

Watch carefully for spots like this on the blades of grass.

This is a fungal disease. It is easy enough to fix by using ordinary corn meal at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Corn meal is an organic disease treatment that seems to work well for St Augustine, but not necessarily for other grass types. It is also an organic fertilizer like alfalfa pellets, so if you use corn meal for the leaf spots, then you don't need to use alfalfa also. I'm just showing you the picture so you know what to look for. If you're going to get the disease, it will happen from too much water or from cutting off the air. My wife likes to toss weeds onto the grass, and simply covering the grass with weeds overnight can result in what you see in the picture.

Oh no ! Hearing this just depressed me. 😭

So at this point it will stay lumpy and there is nothing that can be done ?

Leveling St Augustine is harder than leveling, say, bermuda, but it can be done. Search this forum for leveling topics.