Hi Jem17, if your soil temperature hits 55 degrees, it will turn brown because of dormancy. However, as with new sod, it needs to be watered frequently for about a month. When I say watered frequently, I don't mean watering for 5 minutes per sod, I mean 45 minutes once or twice a day. Since you laid it down in October and based on the information you provided, it sounds like it went dormant. Warm season grasses are very hardy, just give it a good heavy watering and it should green up once soil temperature is above 60 degrees. Since your in Texas, it almost sounds like it wasn't watered heavily since you said you have been watering manually.

St. Augustine will go dormant when soil temps drop below a certain level......most sources state below 55F. And will remain dormant until the soil temps warm sufficiently, usually not until spring. Cold fronts or the lack of them really don't have much of an impact as it is not the ambient air temps that affects dormancy other than decreasing air temperatures in late fall and into winter will ultimately lower the soil temperature as well. But that is slower to chill off and also slower to warm up again in spring.

I wouldn't expect to see much "greening" until spring.

Thanks, here are some pictures. Looking at it, it seems it’s 95% brown. We did get roughly 0.5 inches of rain last night so I’ll try watering tomorrow and get to a stricter watering schedule.

It looks like either it wasn't watered properly or its in heavy shade. It can probably be revived with heavy watering, if it is in heavy shade, it may not come back.

What was your exact watering schedule when the grass first went down? You said you watered every day, but how long was each watering period?

That lawn looks dead from disease caused by too much watering. That is NOT dormancy. Can you move the camera in to about 6 INCHES away from the living grass. I would be looking for lesions which look like the tan spots surrounded by brown edges in this picture.

If this is what you have, you have a shot at recovery, but I'd like to see your picture first. When you look at the dead grass, you can often see these lesions as looking like a discolored ring of brown on the brown blades.

I get the yellowing and spots in parts of my lawn too. Is that brown patch or something else?

bjb817, take close up pictures and start your own topic.

Brown patch is a northern lawn problem. This is something else.

Brown patch plagues St Augustine here in South Texas. Grubs and other insects cause problems too. Never a dull moment with yard care!

did you not tell the sod folks to hold the chinch bugs?

Just kidding, although I have seen chinch bugs do something similar but I doubt that's your issue

Looks overwatered to me, bet you can lift it up and you'll see a white fungus growing in the roots.