re: Laid sod in June

I hate to hear about your situation. As a turf manager, nothing irks me more than paying good money for sod and it not live.

Some questions for you:

A) location?

B) did you have any soil tests done prior to laying the sod? Centipede tends to prefer a slightly more acidic soil than most other types of grasses (pH of 5.0-6.0) whereas Bermuda, St. Augustine and zoysia generally prefer a pH over 6.0. A high pH will also cause the iron in the soil to become less available and lead to “yellowing” or chlorosis. High phosphorous can do the same.

C) how much fertilizing have you done? Centipede really only requires about 1 lb of nitrogen per growing season. More than that can lead to excessive thatch which can harbor disease and insects which could ultimately cause the turf to fail. A thatchy turf also leads to diminished root growth which causes overwatering which causes disease and so on and so on. Nematodes can also wreak havoc on a root system as well. Certainly a possibility there.

Never been a really big fan of centipede, although I understand, completely, budgetary restraints. I suppose if you were to check your soil pH and have a nutrient availability soil test done, that would be a huge first step in addressing the problem.

I do agree that if there is some green there and some of the stolons are still viable, then there could be hope for resurrecting your centipede grass. Since you already have a base there, depending on location, you could dethatch what’s there, remove that material and then interseed centipede seed and start growing it in from there. It may take 3-4 weeks before the seed starts to germinate, so depending on location, that may be best done next spring into summer. Or if you feel like there’s enough growing time left in the season, then do that asap. There are improved varieties of common Bermuda seed that can do well. It would take over the centipede and you would have a Bermuda lawn instead of centipede. (Some of those decisions, however, may be predicated by soil testing.)

I suppose a centipede lawn could be nice if all the conditions are right. It’s one of those grasses that doesn’t actually require a lot of maintenance. In fact, overdoing the maintenance on it can be worse for it than not doing enough.

I hope that helps a little.