Yes, you would need a phytosanitary certificate to take live plant material into another country and you need to check with the governing agricutural body in your country for what they require.

If there is no soil on the sprigs, you may be able to get them out, but as gardengal says, you can't transport anything with soil on the roots without a phytosanitary certificate.

ok....that´s what i was thinking....remove the soil and put some mosty cotton around the roots so the sprigs can survive the 8/9 hours flight.

thank you so much for your advices.

however i still dont know where to get the sprigs! =/

You'll have a hard time finding grass plugs this time of year where you are. Palmetto is usually sold as sod, not plugs, and it's not usually sold in the winter. I wouldn't risk trying to smuggle it out. You can be arrested for that. Fines are pretty steep.

i suppose you are right! i am going to try to find it around here...an impossible task so far! =/

thank you all for you advices! =)

Where are you located? What country?

Hello Dchall, I'm in Europe's West Coast (Portugal)! =)

Clearly traveling with a mess of grass sprigs is easy enough to do, but there may be restrictions in Portugal. The idea of the restrictions is to protect the ongoing agriculture production in Portugal from harm caused by crop damaging species of bugs or diseases. I would check with the department of agriculture. There is likely to be a local office you can visit to discuss it with them and find out what you need to have and ask how hard that is to get. They may want to quarantine the grass once it arrives for a time to determine if bugs or diseases are living in the grass. Also check to see if you have to arrive at certain airports to get proper reception of the plant material. You might even check with the airport customs inspectors to see if they agree with the agriculture department rules.

Having said that, St Augustine does not come in sprig form...at least it does not come that way in Texas. It comes in sod patches about .6 meters by .5 meters. I don't know how much you want to cover, but the grass spreads about 5 meters per year in all directions, so if you are patient, it will cover any size area. Of course soil disease is another issue for the agriculture folks, so it would be likely they would not allow import of the soil attached to the sod. If the sod piece is grown in sand, then the 'soil' will rinse right off in a tub of water. If there is any clay component to the soil, it will soak off eventually in a tub of water. After the soil is off the roots, then time is of the essence. St Augustine does not rebound well from extended drought. You might be able to pack the grass with damp peat moss and travel with it that way. Again, ask your agriculture department for all the details.

Just as a first guess, if I were trying to travel with St Augustine, I would get two pieces (about $5 USD), remove the soil from both, flip one of the mats of remaining grass sprigs upside down, pack the roots with moist peat moss, and drop the other piece of grass on top of that to they were root side to root side. Then I would try rolling all that up to put in a carry-on bag.

After arrival at the destination, unpack the grass and get place it down on sand or more peat moss to get the roots buried in something that will hold moisture. Be careful not to bury the grass blades or the plant will die. Expect the grass to sleep for several months. If you were to get the grass down in the early spring, you might not see much spreading until fall. It seems to spread fastest when the temperature is from 20 C to 30 C.

Now I have to ask, why do you want the Palmetto variety of St Augustine? Is there a reason for Palmetto or is that the only one you've seen? Where is the grass going? Sun? Shade? Will there be much activity on the grass like pets or sports?

Thank you so much for this priceless information.

Thank you so much for this priceless information.

why I want palmetto?! from the research I've made I think it's the best St augustine variety for my backyard conditions. let me tell you a few... in winter, temperature under 45F for around 400 hours, eventually reaching 28F and the lawn only gets around 3/4 hours of sun. the rainfall will be around 25 inches from October to May. in summer the temperature rises above 88F for extended days in a row, the humidity is very low and it's gets around 6 to 8 hours of sun. no rainfall from July to September. I will water it, but I don't want to do it three times a week. in my front lawn I have the common St augustine around here ( the scratchy type) and I only water it once every week. once I've managed to dig some 25 inches roots from the soil ( I think I've already told you this). the backyard lawn is to be used by two children from April to December.

what do you think about my choice?

Happy New Year! Palmetto should be fine. If you don't have someone looking over your shoulder to keep it mowed short, I would mow at the mower's highest setting and mow every other week or so. This approach will give you much deeper roots than shorter mowing.

I still don't understand why anyone who has other choices would choose St Augustine even if there were no other difficulties. For one thing, it's the biggest water hog of any grass anywhere. It's also unpleasant to walk on compared to almost any other grass.

And I've never, ever in my whole life as a Floridian seen such a thing as sprigs. It's a very thick, dense mat and never sold except as sod.

writers, if you do it right, St Augustine needs no more water than any other grass to look presentable. Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering any grass. Deep means to water a full inch every time you water, unless it has rained. In most of Florida you could easily go a week, and most of the time, two weeks, between irrigation. I live in the hills of Texas, with low humidity and temps in the very high 90s for about 200 days a year, and only watered my St Augustine a handful of times this year. That's about par for us unless we have a severe drought year. One secret to infrequent watering is to mow at the mower's highest setting and skip a week when you can. This develops deeper roots which can extract moisture from deeper into the cooler soil/sand.

If you don't like the way it feels, I can understand that. When mowed high it is especially spongy underfoot. Bermuda and centipede can be mowed low and feel more like carpet underfoot.

I agree that it is not sold as sprigs. I think making sprigs out of a piece of St Aug would not work. You can make sprigs out of hybrid bermuda sod all day long, but with St Augustine you will sacrifice a lot of it. Luckily all you need is one sprig to survive and you can have a full St Augustine lawn after a few years.