I would love to have a St Augustine yard but I sure It would croak in our winters.

according to the site I posted below norman would be right on the edge of where it would grow and the closet place would be in Texas to buy sod. Of course this is just one site that I found but I imagine your luck in finding a sod dealer who sells it in Oklahoma would be pretty slim.

this site sells plugs you could order
http://www.seedland.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=Seedland&Category_Code=STAUG-PALMETTO

mike

Here is a link that might be useful: where it will grow

Nice grass. I like it. You might end up splitting hairs with it but might be worth it. Oklahoma can toss the extremes all over the place.

I know that some people have grown Palmetto St. Augustine at least as far north as the Tulsa area and have been happy with it. However, there will be years where it may freeze back significantly. While it can tolerate more cold than 'Raleigh' St. Augustine, one thing that is really hard on all St. Augustine in Oklahoma is when we have a really mild spell of winter weather for a prolonged period so the grass doesn't even go completely dormant, and then the temperatures suddenly plunge extremely low in just a day or so. It is that abrupt change from a warm and mild winter to a suddenly bitter cold one that often hurts St. Augustine grass.

I am as far south as you can go in zone 7b southcentral OK without crossing over into Texas, with Texas to my east, south and west and we have problems here in our county with early freezes or big fluctuations in winter temps causing a lot of St. Augustine dieback. It is my favorite grass. I had 'Raleigh' St. Augustine in Fort Worth in the 1980s and early 1990s and loved it, loved it, loved it. Our next-door neighbor here had St. Augustine when we moved here and I said I was going to watch his and replace our bermuda grass with St. Augustine if his grass thrived for a couple of years. So, here we are 14 years later and his St. Augustine is almost entirely gone, and we still have our bermuda grass.

I wouldn't make a huge investment in it initially. Is there a sort of out-of-the-way spot in the backyard where you could plant a small area of 'Palmetto' as a test and see how it does for a couple of years before you commit to planting a lot of it?

By the way, the people who posted about 'Palmetto' on this forum a couple of years ago had found a local source in NE OK but that was probably 3 to 5 years ago and I don't know if it still is available up there. Down here, I always see some St. Augustine plugs or sod in local home improvement stores like Home Depot or Lowe's, but probably not until late April or May.

Dawn

Thanks so much for the replies! I found a place in north Texas that sells the Raleigh grass, but I'm having a tough time tracking down any of the Palmetto. I've got family down that way so it wouldn't be a huge deal to drive down and pick it up. However, I was sure hoping to get the Palmetto for just the reasons that you pointed out, Dawn. I worry about the cold ruining all my beautiful grass! We are looking into just getting one pallet to see if we can keep it alive. My backyard is pretty tiny, which in this case would be a blessing in disguise. I won't have to spend a fortune to test it out. :)

If you have family in north Texas, they ought to be able to bring you 'Palmetto' too.

I googled and found some in the D-FW area via the website I've linked below. It might be worth checking into. You don't have to solid-sod it, so you'd only need a little of it to plug into your lawn. I don't know anything about this website, but it does show Palmetto is available in the D-FW metroplex.

When we lived in Fort Worth, the front yard of the house we bought had 'Raleigh' St. Augustine, but the backyard had scraggly bermuda because the yard was pretty shady. I just dug up plugs from the front yard and moved them to the back, putting one every 3 or 4 feet, and those plugs grew in solid the first summer. It was easy!

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: grass4sale

Hi my name is Byron and saw your post on planning San Augustine in the area and I am also a native of Texas and love the grass and was thinking of planning it in my front yard and I currently bought a house in Yukon Oklahoma.I have located the grass in Gainesville Texas just over the border and I am scheduled to pick up a pallet today. I was just wondering if you had any luck with your yard in Norman before I make The trip? Thank you so much, Byron in Yukon

I do not know how cold y'all get in Yukon, but down here in Love County (just across the Red River from Gainesville) we generally have a few nights each year in the 0-5 degree range. I think Palmetto's cold hardiness is rated around 5 degrees, so you're likely on the northern edge of where it might survive the winters. I know that "Raleigh" San Augustine will not survive the coldest winters in my county, and I doubt that "Palmetto" would. Our coldest night in 2017 (so far) was 4 degrees. If you plant it, I hope you'll let us know how it does for you.

Guys I grew up a a boy in Tx. too, but I think most of us here are just slightly out of St. Augustine growing range. Hard freezes or standing ice will be tough on it.

I have seen a guy down at Broken Bow OK. that had a beautiful yard full of a related stuff called Centipede Grass. He said it was kin to St. Augustine but tolerated drought and extremes better. His yard was beautiful with it growing thick even under his trees.

Might be something you could research.