First, If you haven't done so already you need to rent a water roller and fill it 1/2 full of water and roll it over the new sod. Lightly water sod beforehand. This will make sure the sod has good contact with the soil below. "This is an important step."

For the first 2 weeks you need to keep the sod moist. If you let it dry out for too long it will die

Week 1-2: Water 2-3x per day, 20min per zone or 1/4" of water each time.
Week 3: Water 1x per day
week 4: Water every other day - 1/2" water
Week 5 and ongoing water deeply and infrequently with 3/4-1" of water.

After week five the roots should have made full contact with the existing soil. To check, grad 2 fist full of grass blades and gently pull upward. It should not budge. At this time you could spread some fertilizer according to the directions. I would suggest something mild like milorganite or an organic fert.

Thanks for the info skoot cat! We didn't do the water roller part. This is the kind of stuff I was hoping to hear! By the way, your lawn looks beautiful!!!

Just planted St. Augistine lawn. Previously had Centipede and live in Pensacola. I read the lawn should now be walked on for the first two weeks. I do have two dogs which have to go out but I watch them carefully and they stay in the house. Will this be a problem?

Looking at laying sod the first of September. Is this too late for the grass to get established? Live in Charleston SC and the winters are generally pretty mild.

@ dona. not too late.

@OP. Water roller is not necessary. But you need to water daily for 20 min for about 1 mo. Gradiually decreasing to once a week. No walking on it, no mowing. Seeing longer blades will be your clue that it has taken root, and only then can you mow

my 2 cents for this kind of grass, buy some composted cow manure from Waltmart ($1.53 per bag) on top of the SOD unless you have good soil under SOD already, mow high around 4 inches, put some coffee ground, diluted urine and liquid grass clippings(make sure no bad seeds in the clippings), it will work

How long did you wait to mow for the first time. I laid down st augustine 4 weeks ago and I'm not sure how long I should give it before I mow. It's thriving and at 6 inches already

Willy for some reason your other post has the comments turned off. You might want to repost.

I have let St Augustine grow up to 32 inches high, which seems to be the limit of growth. Then I "mowed" it back down with a string trimmer and kept it at 12 inches tall with a string trimmer. So there is nothing going to happen if the grass gets too tall. The taller it is the deeper the roots go. The deeper the roots go the less irrigation you need to apply. My tall grass St Aug went for 36 months with no irrigation, and it looked fine(ish) through all the droughts we had. As soon as the rains came again the grass, of course, perked up. The point is the taller it is the better it will make it through the summer. I just trimmed my current lawn down to get the few pieces of weed stems out, but I tried not to cut the actual grass. This is on a south facing slope in the heat of Texas, so I'm trying to keep it alive with once a week watering allowed around here. It looks very good considering the situation. I attribute that to the length.

So you can mow if you want to. If you decide not to mow right now, then when you finally do mow, bring it down by about 1/3 with a string trimmer for your first cut. Give it a couple days to rest and regrow, then bring it down to the final height or by another 1/3 if the grass got pretty tall. Then mow at the mower's highest setting all the time. There is never any reason to mow St Aug at any other setting.