Florida has some big and beautiful trees and while these are great on a summer day, they aren’t so great if you want a thick, beautiful lawn. Luckily, if you are blessed with beautiful trees that you don’t want to cut down or thin out, you do have some options to still have a nice lawn. The most shade tolerant type of sod is St. Augustine. There are several nice cultivars that tolerate shade including Sapphire, Raleigh, Palmetto, and Captiva. However, even the most shade tolerant grasses available still need at least 4-5 hours of direct sunlight or more for filtered sun. If you are not getting at least that, you may want to consider a different type of landscaping