As for varieties of St. A, it depends on alot of factors, most notably the amount of sun that your yard receives each day and the amount of work you're willing to put into maintaining it.
FWIW, there's alot of different grasses out there that perform way better, IMO, than St.A.

kathy he's right about it depending on many factors. The newest variety is Floratam developed in the universities in Florida and Texas. Floratam looks best when mowed high. Some are more disease resistant than others. Floratam was developed to be resistant.

OP: St. Augustine grass is what every body and their mothers plant in Florida, coarse bladed and very fast growing which required lots of mwoing... I would look at Zoysia instead or even Centipede before using St. Augustine. It resembles crabgrass quite well... Is really too coarse for a home lawn in my opinion.

Whatever you do, DONT GET BERMUDA!!

I agree that St Augustine does look like crabgrass at first glance. When I first came to the south that was the last grass I wanted. But I have come to see the benefits. For one, crabgrass will never turn deep green no matter what (St Aug gets very dark green when fertilized). Crabgrass sends up seed heads before you can get around to mowing it (St Aug does not). And crabgrass never grows very tall (St aug can get up to 30 inches and look pretty good if you want that look).

Centipede looks like St Aug with smaller blades and larger runners. It must be mowed under 1 inch to look good. It also needs full sun, unlike St Aug.

Zoysia can be a good, fine bladed, alternative. There are varieties that grow very well in the sun and some do well in deep shade, so you are covered. Having said that, almost every zoysia lawn in my neighborhood has been replaced with St Aug. I'm not sure what keeps these other two zoysia lawns successful.

From what I've gathered on the internet, Empire Zoysia (similar to Palisades) is becoming more popular each year in Florida.

I only planted one side of my driveway just to make sure that this grass is going to live in it's new location. It is a fairly shaded area. The previous owner had centipede there and it all dies out very quickly.

Kyle, welcome to the site. I see you just joined. It's great to have you here! :-)

I agree with you; I like zoysia a lot too.

Just wanted to gently let you know that you seem to be promoting a commercial web site that is your own. GardenWeb understandably frowns on that.

It's no big deal, but we'd all appreciate it if you wouldn't do it again :-)

A public "whois" search of the web site shown in your link, LandImpressions.com , brings up the following public information. As you can see below, the "Organization Name" for LandImpressions.com is "Kyle Weerts."

Your GardenWeb user ID of "Kylewee" appears to be a shortened version of the web site's Organization Name.

Domain Name.......... landimpressions.com
Creation Date........ 2007-05-09
Registration Date.... 2007-05-09
Expiry Date.......... 2013-05-09

Organisation Name.... KYLE WEERTS

Organisation Address. PO Box 61359
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Sunnyvale
Organisation Address. 94088
Organisation Address. CA
Organisation Address. US

======

Like I said Kylewee, it's no big deal. I'm sure many of us are glad to have a fellow zoysia lover on board :-)

You might want to read the following part of GardenWeb's policy regarding self-advertising.

By the way, please do continue posting, because as a zoysia business owner, you probably have lots of great, wonderful information that can help other great folks here. And I'm sure the folks here can help you too :-)

Here's the reasonable policy:

If you sell anything, or have a ".com" commercial domain, you are considered a business for the purposes of this document.

If you have a business and post to the forums, please read this page in its entirety. If you choose not to, you will nevertheless be held to the consequences of ignoring what is outlined here.

Advertising, in any form, is strictly forbidden in forum messages and on member pages. This does not mean that as a business owner you cannot use the forums or have a membership. It means you cannot use forum messages or your member pages as a means of advertising. Even our paying advertisers are not allowed to that.

If you have a business, mentioning the name, providing a link, giving the phone number, etc., are all forms of advertising. Linking to an informational page or image at your site where items are sold is an advertisement. Linking to a site that in turn links to your business is an advertisement. If you post such a message under a pseudonym, it is still an ad. If you link to it from your member pages, it is an ad. In sum, if at least part of the reason you are posting is to let people know about your business, it is an advertisement. This is exactly what our paying advertisers are trying to do: get people to their site or business.

GardenWeb offers a range of advertising options that include a very inexpensive listing in the Garden Bazaar Directory. Therefore, there is no excuse for even the smallest business that wishes to advertise not to do so legitimately.

Two great articles to get your started on Zoysia in Florida.

I live in Jacksonville Florida too. My yard used to be ST. Augustine, as as everybody else on the street, that was until the Chinch bugs moved in. Since then, no matter what, yard after yard puts in new St. Augustine only to have the Chinch bugs move over and eat away at the new Filet Mignon. Based on feedback from many people EMPIRE (Course) and EMERALD (thin) bladed Zoysia's seems to be the most popular around here. If you go to the University of Florida Extension you will see they are very high on them given they are traffic resistant, uses less water, drought resistant, handles the winter better, less mowing, less prone to disease, and Chinch bugs do not like it (though grubs do), which is nice to know your neighbors problem is not going to jump the fence and eat away your new investment 6 months after you lay it down. Good luck. Oh, for Zoysia you will need a new good lawn mower, that can handle cutting at 1.5-2.5 inches. Where St. Augustine is 3-4 inches. Zoysia is not the golden nugget, it has it issues, as I am still dealing with the nerves of cutting low for spring time green up by cutting it below 2"....but just did it....so looking forward to that beautiful lawn again soon.

OceanFrank, it sounds like you just got a new mower. Congratulations on the new addition :-)

Is it a rotary or a reel? How many horsepower?

[Chuckle] It sounds like I just asked you if you had a boy or a girl and how much it weighed at birth.

I agree with you. It does make one a litte nervous to see the zoysia cut to a scalped height for the first time. What height below 2 inches did you cut your zoysia at: 1.8, 1.6 inches, or some other height?

I bought a new Honda HRX217HYA. The first time out, I was floored. Amazing cut at 2", and it SUCKED all the dead leaves right up (Along with the new fertilizer I put down too I suspect). I kid you not when I say I pulled away four lawn bags full of dead leaves from a previous 2" cut on 1600sqft (Just the front yard). This was after pulling about 8 bags on the fist cut. Now I can see to the ground, and most of the dead leaves are gone. What a difference a Great Mower makes. Since the mower is restricted to .75, 1.25, and 2" at the minimum end I decided to stay with 2" this year given how hot it is already and how much dead grass was now gone. 90's in the day and 70's at night. Grass is already getting water deprived.

Also I went to the University extension and they pretty much told me in Florida Organic fertilizer were going to be very hard to start my lawn on given my lot was full of pond dirt. Once established it might work, but for now need to continue with something in the 30-0-10 range given my lawn is still nitrogen deficient and pale green. Keep mulching it and each month apply a new round of compost/dirt. Then in about two years give the organics a try.

The baby boy is not born yet. Coming in August so hoping he has a green lawn to lay in come August. Thank you for asking.

I bought a new Honda HRX217HYA. The first time out, I was floored. Amazing cut at 2", and it SUCKED all the dead leaves right up (Along with the new fertilizer I put down too I suspect). I kid you not when I say I pulled away four lawn bags full of dead leaves from a previous 2" cut on 1600sqft (Just the front yard). This was after pulling about 8 bags on the fist cut. Now I can see to the ground, and most of the dead leaves are gone. What a difference a Great Mower makes. Since the mower is restricted to .75, 1.25, and 2" at the minimum end I decided to stay with 2" this year given how hot it is already and how much dead grass was now gone. 90's in the day and 70's at night. Grass is already getting water deprived.

Also I went to the University extension and they pretty much told me in Florida Organic fertilizer were going to be very hard to start my lawn on given my lot was full of pond dirt. Once established it might work, but for now need to continue with something in the 30-0-10 range given my lawn is still nitrogen deficient and pale green. Keep mulching it and each month apply a new round of compost/dirt. Then in about two years give the organics a try.

The baby boy is not born yet. Coming in August so hoping he has a green lawn to lay in come August. Thank you for asking.

Wow, it sounds like you have a great mower. I saw some fantastic looking Hondas at Sam's Club; maybe they're the same model you have--not sure of the model number, though. I have to stop by Sam's today, so I'll check.

Others might disagree, but I think you made the right decision to stick to 2 inches if 1.25 inches is the next lowest setting. I think I lucked out with my older mower. It's probably not as good as your's, but it has 9 wheel settings and each setting varies the blade height by between 0.25 inches and 0.37 inches, depending on the setting.

But I wonder if maybe you do have a setting between 1.25 and 2 inches, because for the longest time I thought my 9-setting mower had only 5 settings. You know, the height setting on my mower (and many mowers) is adjusted by switching a lever's position on a sprocket for each wheel. For the longest time, I thought the 5 spikes on the sprocket meant I only had 5 wheel positions to choose from. But I finally figured out just a couple months ago that you can also use the "valleys" between each spike, which gives me an additional 4 height positions--so 9 total.

Regarding that problem about part of your yard having steep angles and sideways slopes, I read somewhere that steep slopes shouldn't be mowed either straight across in horizontal rows or in straight up-and-down rows because it's too easy to slip and lose control of the mower--and bye, bye foot when the blade catches it. And it's too easy for the mower to tip over sideways. Steep slopes are better managed by mowing diagonally in diagonal rows, according to what I read somewhere.