Salt-smart lawns & pavers for St. Petersburg homes

St. Augustine is still the city's default lawn, and its salt tolerance is relatively good. Where spray is constant, zoysia matrella cultivars handle it better, and seashore paspalum tolerates salt best of all the warm-season grasses, though only in full sun, never under the big shade trees of the Old Northeast or Historic Kenwood.

If surge reached your yard, re-sodding right away is the most common mistake. UF/IFAS recommends removing deposited silt first, flushing the soil with fresh water until salinity drops and breaking up compaction before any new grass goes down. We follow that order on every post-storm sod installation, and we'll tell you honestly when a bed of salt-tolerant plants makes more sense than turf. Before the next season, our hurricane prep checklist walks through what to do and when.

As of October 2026, City of St. Petersburg water customers irrigate once a week by address parity: even-numbered addresses on Saturday, odd or unnumbered addresses on Sunday, in one slot from 5 to 9 a.m. or 7 to 11 p.m., unlike the midnight windows used elsewhere in the region. SWFWMD has extended its Phase III order through March 31, 2027, so confirm the City's current calendar with St. Pete Water Resources (opens in a new tab) before resetting a timer. When the order lifts, the City's twice-weekly schedule returns: even addresses Tuesday and Saturday, odd addresses Wednesday and Sunday.

New sod or plantings need a 30-day watering variance from the City (one per six months, no extensions), so installs are scheduled to start when it does. Reclaimed water (St. Pete built the first large-scale urban reuse system in 1977) stays voluntary, up to three days a week. The City's fertilizer ban runs June 1–September 30; feeding is coordinated with licensed partners outside that window. Our watering guide compares St. Pete with its neighbors.

St. Pete makes small hardscape easier than most cities. On single-family and duplex lots, patios, walks and similar flatwork no more than 12 inches above grade are exempt from a building permit; setbacks still apply, and work in a local historic district may not be exempt. That makes a paver patio, garden path or side-yard walkway in Crescent Lake, Disston Heights or Euclid-St. Paul a relatively low-friction project.

Hedges and fences follow zoning rather than a permit: 4 feet maximum in the front yard, 6 feet on the sides and rear, finished side facing out. In Historic Kenwood, Old Northeast/North Shore, Roser Park, Park Street, Historic Uptown and Round Lake, visible exterior work can need a Certificate of Appropriateness, and front-yard fences are generally discouraged. Our landscape design plans account for those district rules from the start.

St. Pete protects trees at small sizes: shade trees from 4 inches in diameter and understory trees from 8 inches need a removal permit, and the permit has to be posted where it's visible from the street. Grand trees start at 30 inches (laurel oaks excluded), and the City names signature trees for extra protection: banyans; kapoks of 30 inches or more; jacarandas and royal poincianas from 8 inches. Trimming a grand tree's branch 8 inches or thicker also needs a permit.

For driveways, any apron in the right-of-way requires an Engineering right-of-way permit. Some “St. Petersburg” mailing addresses sit in unincorporated Pinellas County and follow County rules instead, so we confirm which applies before any tree trimming or paver work.