I planted about a dozen pallets of St. Augustine 3 springs ago when moving into my new house since most of the yard was dirt. The grass took off the first year and came back strong the following 2 years. However, there are two separate large areas in the back yard where it didn't come back this spring. The rest of the St. Augustine has. It got the same amount of rain/water as the rest of the yard. Both areas are in the backyard close to the fence or house where the sunlight is not as abundant as the other areas. Is it possible that it just hasn't come out of dormancy yet? I'm in the Dallas area and this spring has been up and down with barely any 90s. Currently it's 52 F.

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St. Augustine not coming back?

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Have you had any recent work done around the house? I had a patch of zoysia suddenly thin after painting/roof replacement at my house.

Something could have been spilled or maybe spray for insects/grubs.

PlanoAg98 said:

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I planted about a dozen pallets of St. Augustine 3 springs ago when moving into my new house since most of the yard was dirt. The grass took off the first year and came back strong the following 2 years. However, there are two separate large areas in the back yard where it didn't come back this spring. The rest of the St. Augustine has. It got the same amount of rain/water as the rest of the yard. Both areas are in the backyard close to the fence or house where the sunlight is not as abundant as the other areas. Is it possible that it just hasn't come out of dormancy yet? I'm in the Dallas area and this spring has been up and down with barely any 90s. Currently it's 52 F.

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Your St. Augustine should be fully out of dormancy by now. My yard in the Lewisville area is fully in and thick, with a few cuttings done already, despite the fickle temps and buckets of rain we've received.

While it is more shade-tolerant than other grasses, St. Augustine needs 5-6 hours of full, direct sunlight to thrive.

Sounds like yours may not get enough sun. We had that same situation in a shady corner of the yard - it was always slow to come in, and usually looked sparse and half-dead. We finally put in a border and filled in the area with mulch, and put some outdoor furniture back there.

If you think that's not it, a shady area may also be more susceptible to things like fungal diseases, especially as it would be slower to dry there.

Some runners are starting to sprout up but it's much different from all other St. Augustine areas in the rest of the backyard.

Do you have Grub worms?

We had the same thing. In Plano too. I thing something is going around somehow. We lost our entire backyard and ripped it all up and just replaced with Zoysia. We are worried a little about the front yard but waiting to see...praying we don't have to do another$1,500 for more sod.

Thats massive, could be root rot

Definitely looks like take all root rot

Couldnt think of what it was called last night but that is what we had in backyard and praying do not have in front yard...

Any recommendations on how to go from here?

Hopefully someone else with more grass knowledge chimes in but you might be the spot we were in and have to re-sod. We were even told to use a different variety to mitigate the risk of the issue coming back through the soil so we went with Zoysia.

Edit: it seems s****num peat moss might be something to help cure however what I don't know is will it help when the grass is clearly dead or if more a treatment when your grass is green-ish. Can't hurt to try all the way around.

https://neilsperry.com/2018/05/take-root-rot-back/