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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
Enough depressing talk about leaves. It is time to plant not rake. I am about to plant part of my lawn and I have 2 questions.
1) Has anyone planted Zoysia from seed?
2) What problems have you had with Zoysia grass and is it a good idea?
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
I think it depends on where you live. If you live in Florida its the only way to go, further north its not so great.
In northern lawns, zoysia browns up extremely early as it cools in the fall, and if your lawn is not 100% pure it looks patchy. People used to put zoysia plugs in their lawns up here in NJ with this effect. I have never seen anyone up here grow from seed, but its gotta be possible as I drove by hundreds of acres of the stuff at sod farms in Florida last week, but I think the long hot humid season in FL has to help in germinating the seed.
It also grows at a different rate than non zoysia grasses, and has a thick blade that is as thick or thicker than crabgrass.
So I think the key is you need to be someplace hot so you can get 100% stand of the stuff and then it looks pretty good. The other thing about zoysia is that it is so stiff that its not the sort a stuff you want to lounge around on.
Dennis
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
Well in the full sun in central AL you need something that is drought resistant or you will not be able to pay the water bill. You choices are limited. Most of the drought resistant strains go dormant in the winter.
In full sun I have 3 choices, bermuda, centipee or zoysia. I think zoysia may be the best.
I have centiped but this has not body like normal grass and it is not that drought resistant. I lost a lot a couple of years ago.
Many of the new Zoysia strains are finer blade than the earlier ones. I am not sure about the Zenith, which they are selling from seed.
The sod farms are not necessarily seeding.
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
Eric, you had me worried for a minute there. When I read the heading I thought you were going to throw in the towel and buy an eastern european tractor of some sort. Glad to find out this is about grass......
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
No Mark, I had no idea that growing grass was so difficult. In the west coast the grass was always green and anything seemed to grow, I though. Here anything that would grow there will not grow here and vise versa.
As I stated I seem to be left with grass that goes Dormant in the winter either St. Augustine, Centipee, Bermuda, Zoysia or Bahia.
Centipee look nice and feels OK but is slow to get moving in the spring, so the weeds take off and is not that drought resistant. I have a few acres of lawn and it is difficult to water the whole area.
Bahia I have in the pasture and is not really suitable for lawn.
Bermuda goes really brown in the winter and is high mow in growing season.
Zoysia can have nice turf and is low mow.
St. Augustine can not be grown from seed.
I am left with trying to grow zoysia for the new area of lawn.
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
So is this the stuff I've seen advertised in magazines where you mail order plugs of turf, put one every so many inches and it takes over your lawn?
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
Well so they say, but I was looking through the fine print yesterday on one of the sites and they said that it would not do it to Centipee and Bahia as they also expand with rhisomes (are creapers).
Iike I said no one worried too much about grass up north as is was covered with snow 6 months of the year.
The Zoysia plugs - last year I ordered some Zoysia plugs. I spend $100. I cut the lawn and placed the plugs, took nearly a day then they all died. They sent me some more plugs in the fall which I left as sod, they have not spread yet and from yesterdays finding may not.
Recently I found I could get Zoysia sod locally. $75 dollars a pallet. But this years crop is sold out.
Which leaves seeding the lawn? For which I could use some advice.
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
Peters, I also ordered the Z-52 zoysia grass from the magazine (Zoysia Farms I think it was) add and my wife plugged like over 5,000 small plugs. She got wore out about 80% of the way through and so was I so I just planted the rest in big 18" x 10" mats. The plugs all dried up and blew away. I called them back and they sent me an entire new batch. This time I planted the entire box in big 18" x 10" mats and kept them well watered. The took hold and every year they take over more and more of the yard. The dogs love it because it is like indoor carpet in summer and is warm to sleep on in winter. It is gorgeous when it is all greened up but goes dormant in fall and turns whiteish brown. The best feature about the grass is that it kills out EVERYTHING including weeds as it spreads.
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
Chief;
The sections I planted have not exactly taken over the other areas of grass. If anything the centipee has invaded the area that I placed the Zoysia.
The variety of Zoysia sod I can get locally is a lot nicer than the plugs I bought.
Peters
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To Zoysia or not to Zoysia
A farmer friend of mine (bless his heart he is guilty of never reading the fine print) bought some from a magazine and they sent it to him. It was advertised as some "government developed" supergrass. His front yard had always been a mess of weeds so he tilled it up. He showd me what it was and I snickered inside but told him I would do my best to help plant it. Well we got it planted and after keeping the chickens and geese and other critters off the lawn, it looked worse than a 50 dollar hair implant. Plugs at the end of the year had not grown together. Neither after year 2. Finally after year 3, they had finally manged to meet. But during this time, this grass had destroyed 3 pushowers and no telling how many blades. Finally after five years, it looks good but keeping a sharp blade on your mower is key or it will rip the grass to shreds. A good reelmower is really needed to do the job right. This was a N. GA climate. 250 miles south it grows slightly faster where I live now and makes a fine lawn, although a little bristly for my taste if you ever like to go out and sit and read under a favorite tree.
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