Help with Empire Zoysia

gamecoc443 – posted 16 May 2010 06:43

I live in Charleston, SC which has very sandy soil. Most of my neighbors yards have centipede lawns that look like deserts. I sodded my lawn with Empire Zoysia on 4/23/2010. The installer had me water 2x/day for 30 minutes for the first 2 1/2 weeks. Last week I water once per day for roughly 40 minutes, and now I am doing every other day. My yard looks amazing compared to my neighbors, but there are several areas where the grass looks yellow and whispy. I raked out some dead grass this weekend and added a little topsoil to some of the seems to see if it would encourage the grass to fill in. My concern is whether I am overwatering and getting a fungus, or not watering enough and it is dying. I have an inground sprinkler system that gets good coverage. Any tips?

awin4me – posted 18 May 2010 18:55

Well I am in week 3 of my empire install. Like you I have watered my sod twice a day for 30 minutes per zone. Once at 6 am and once at 2:30 pm. I have not cut back on my watering yet. I was waiting until the completion of my 3rd week, which will be Wednesday. My grass is green. I have one piece of yelling out turf, but that was turf that was less than spectacular on install. I’m nurturing it along, but I will probably just buy a piece and pull it up. It’s been really dry here so I’ve watered twice a day. My sod is not yellowing or dieing out any due to the watering. It sounds like you might want to keep it wet for another week or so since you cut it back already. I’d recommend you test the soil’s pH level. Mine was low to start, you can buy lime and raise the pH, its rather cheap to do so. Simply spread with a typical spreader.

Hope it turns out well. I’m fighting off some weeds right now but overall the turf looks great. It looks awesome when I mow it!

gamecoc443 – posted 20 May 2010 05:06

Here is a link to the photos of my grass.http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4443520014/a=99015458_99015458/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/