Down & Out IN Da South

Asian Cajun – posted 22 June 2007 18:00

2 years an de 7 days ago, I build a new home in Marrero, LA. Pour River Sand, level it the bestest I can and lay down my empire zoysia in the swamp. Now, the weeds and burmuda are taking over and dat No stoppin dem no aint no what dey call. Its just get on goanh and spreading like a mosquistosamo on a pelican with wicked wings on top of a shrimp boat on the Westwego Coast. But anyhow, I think it because da river sand from the Mississipe has alot od dem seeds dat Y me lawn aint looking good no. otay, da end is near 4 me because dey r taking over and de stroy my empire of da grass. MIght have to move to da city now. Good bye and c you all da next lawn. Z71 Meyer zoysia. Transformer, robot in decide.

TexanOne – posted 23 June 2007 12:25

Well, if it will make you feel any better Cajun, my Zenith Zoysia was totally taken over by St Augustine – even though I tried to control it with every herbicide known to stop it and had curbing installed before I planted the Zoysia.

I finally called it quits on trying to save the Zoysia two years ago and just let the St Augustine have its way. The St Augustine has turned out to be much prettier and far less maintenance intensive than the Zoysia anyway – even though it isn’t what I wanted. Why not just “go with the flow” and have a nice Bermuda lawn? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…

TexanOne – posted 23 June 2007 12:30

I’ve noticed something about these forums that is almost ironically humorous. There seems to be two discussion groups concerning Zoysia:

– Those that want Zoysia, spend all kinds of money trying to grow it and can’t do it successfully, and…- Those that have Zoysia and are trying to figure out how to kill it and rid their yard of it.

Anyone else noticed this?

[This message has been edited by TexanOne (edited 23 June 2007).]

green in atlanta – posted 25 June 2007 08:26

Texas One, I’ve had my Empire Zoysia for one year, and I couldn’t be more pleased with it– except for my ongoing battle with the invasive bermuda grass. Like much of the country, Atlanta is in the midst of a pretty severe drought. But even with watering restrictions, my lawn is looking pretty darned good. I have noticed that most of the zoysia problems described on this discussion board are from people who opted to plug their lawns instead of sodding them.

blackthumb – posted 25 June 2007 18:42

Wouldn’t try to plug zoysia in a million years. Grows too slow. This is my 3rd summer with empire zoysia. My yard is not perfect or even beautiful, but for the effort I put into it, it looks a hell of a lot better than when I had St. Augustine. Where I could kill St. Augustine by giving it too much fertilizer, too much water, not enough water, scalping it, or using the wrong herbicide, the empire may get damaged but it doesn’t completely die. The view from the road is grass everywhere. It is thin in spots and I fight moles and weeds and have to water about as much as when I had St. Augustine. I’m real happy that my Lowes has just started carrying Empire locally. I can buy a few sq ft of Empire as I need it to fill in the weak areas. Waiting for it to grow back is torture (slow). Not being able to buy small quantities locally was a big disadvantage. If you have the time to maintain your yard (a paid lawn service will probably squirt the same stuff they use on St. Augustine) it can be a beautiful lawn, very comfortable to walk on compared to St. Augustine. If you don’t have the time to maintain your yard, it is adequate and should prevent you from having to re-sod a new St. Augustine yard every 2 or 3 years…..

TexanOne – posted 26 June 2007 03:11

I’ve tried seeding and sodding Zoysia. The seed was Zenith, and the sod was an El Toro and Palisades mix. Of the methods and varieties, the El Toro / Palisades sod mix turned out the best.

The 4000 square feet seeded Zenith area came up ok when it was planted in April 1999, but it has all but died out since then and Texas Common St Augustine was more than happy to fill in where the Zenith died out. The isolated 500 square feet area sodded with El Toro and Palisades mix is still looking very good after 8 years, but it gets watered almost everyday and is lightly shaded by a mimosa tree.

I envy ya’ll that have nice looking Zoysia lawns because the stuff just doesn’t seem to do well in hot, dry climates and areas with marginal quality / high alkaline irrigation water. Of the two limiting factors, water quality seems to be the deciding factor between success and failure. Zoysia is also advertised as needing about the same quantity of water as Bermudagrass, which from my experience is blatantly false. Zoysia seems to need far more water than Bermudagrass or St Augustine just to survive a hot dry summer. It also seems reasonable to me that the climate of Georgia and the southeast USA is similar to the natural range of where most of our Zoysia varieties originated from – namely China, Japan, and Korea.

Just some thoughts and observations…