LSU AgCenter ranks it the most shade-tolerant of the warm-season grasses, it spreads quickly by runners, and since no seed is sold in Louisiana it goes down as sod. In Kenner, the bigger test for it is wet ground.
St. Augustine GrassKenner
St. Augustine Sod for Shaded Kenner Yards
St. Augustine sod in Kenner is the grass we suggest first when a yard has shade.
St. Augustine for your Kenner yard
Parish
Jefferson ParishBest for
Shaded front yards, oak-lined lotsPallet coverage
About 450 sq ft eachEstimates
FREE on all servicesLicensed & Insured, Best Price GuaranteeFREE Estimates4 Grass Varieties14 Metro Cities
01 · Kenner
Will St. Augustine grow under the trees on a Kenner lot?
Usually, if the shade isn’t dense. The lake side of Kenner was freshwater marsh before it was drained, and the native plants there were marsh grasses and reeds, not forest. So shade trees on the lake side, in places like Susan Park or Lincoln Manor, were planted by someone. How much shade your yard gets depends on what went in and how big it has grown.
LSU says most turfgrasses need 4 to 6 hours of full sun. St. Augustine does best in full sun and tolerates moderate shade, but even it won’t grow well in dense shade. Under trees, three changes help:
- 01
Mow higher
Mow higher: LSU suggests 3 to 3.5 inches in shade, up from 2.5 to 3 in sun, so each blade has more leaf to catch light.
- 02
Feed lighter
Feed lighter: Shaded turf gets no more than half a pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet in any one feeding.
- 03
Let light in
Let light in: An older LSU guide suggests thinning trees or limbing them up to 6 to 8 feet.
- 04
Accept the limit
Accept the limit: Where a canopy keeps the ground dark most of the day, LSU is clear that even St. Augustine won’t make a good lawn.
02 · Kenner
How does Kenner’s wet ground affect St. Augustine?
LSU describes St. Augustine as a grass for soils with moderate fertility and good drainage. Kenner’s wet soils are short on the second. Kenner muck holds water, and in pumped areas the water table typically sits 1 to 4 feet down. Schriever clay can stay saturated in its top half foot from December through April.
That matters in two ways. LSU’s winter decline sheet names St. Augustine and centipede as the species most often hurt in wet, poorly drained soil, and it points to core aeration with sand topdressing, better grading or surface drains, and deep but infrequent summer watering as the fixes. Large patch is the other one: St. Augustine is more prone to it than some grasses, and it flares when nights run 60 to 75 F in spring and fall. Water early in the morning so the blades dry by evening.
03 · Kenner
Is your Kenner soil a good match for St. Augustine?
LSU puts the ideal soil pH for St. Augustine at about 6.5, slightly acid to neutral. NRCS data for Kenner shows a spread on either side of that.
Take-all root rot can look a lot like chinch bug damage, so it pays to know your pH before you treat anything.
| Soil | Typical surface pH | For St. Augustine |
|---|---|---|
| Cancienne silt loam, river end | About 5.7 | A little acid for it; a soil test will say whether lime is needed |
| Westwego clay | About 6.2 | Close to ideal; drainage is the bigger concern |
| Schriever clay | About 7.3, up to 8.4 | Above 6.5, where take-all root rot is favored, especially in long rainy spells |
| Kenner muck, drained | Neutral in the series’ typical profile | A workable range, but test it, because the series runs moderately acid to moderately alkaline |
04 · Kenner
A St. Augustine care calendar for Kenner
- 01
Spring
Start mowing at 2.5 to 3 inches and never take more than a third of the blade at once. LSU’s example program feeds 1 pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet in April.
- 02
Summer
Feed again in June, with August optional, keeping the yearly total at or under 3 pounds. Watch sunny, dry patches for southern chinch bugs, which do the most harm in mid to late summer. LSU’s soap flush test uses 1 tablespoon of lemon-scented dish soap in a gallon of water; treatment makes sense once a square foot of lawn turns up 25 to 30 bugs. More in our summer St. Augustine care tips.
- 03
Fall and winter
Large patch season returns as nights cool. St. Augustine has the lowest cold tolerance of the common lawn grasses. Kenner’s USDA zone is 9b, an average annual extreme minimum of 25 to 30 F. LSU’s feeding window closes in midsummer, so skip fertilizer in fall.
Still weighing it against a sun grass? Read our Bermuda vs. St. Augustine comparison, or see zoysia for partly shaded Kenner yards. For the grass itself in any city we serve, visit our St. Augustine sod service page.
Laying St. Augustine in Kenner
We’ll check how many hours of sun your yard really gets, test the low spots for standing water and tell you if the shade is past what St. Augustine can take. Our Kenner sod installation crews handle the prep and the laying. See how it compares on the Kenner lawn and sod guide, then ask for a free estimate.
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