Need Beginners Help!

JoeInOrlandoFL – posted 17 September 2003 11:18

I am planning to sod my backyard. It is vegetation-free right now, and am starting on a freshly tilled base.

I am looking for help choosing the right grass type. The yard sees approximately 6-7 hours direct sunlight in the summer. Shade only in the a.m. and evening hours. Orlando does see some cool temps in the winter, but nothing extreme.

Plans for the yard are not heavy traffic, but it will see activity (i.e. foot and dog traffic).

Please help!Joe

ted – posted 17 September 2003 16:07

st. augustine, no doubt

Alex_in_FL (Lex) – posted 24 December 2003 08:58

With that amount of sunlight you can grow zoysia or bermuda. I live 50 miles east of you and have zoysia and floratam (St. A). I like zoysia better. Disney also has zoysia.

Good luck!

jr – posted 02 January 2004 17:23

st augustine is best in your area and situation, unless you wish to hire a professional to manage zoysia. im going to replace my backyard with zoysia shortly, but only because i myself am a professional and have the luxury of access to any chemicals i need and employees to deal with it.if lex would be kind to advise me on this: i tore up my yard recently and installed several trees and a pond, then just threw down some perennial rye from lesco (i live in palm bay by the way) for the winter. i wish to overseed with zoysia at some point. is this a good plan, and what kind of seed and where do i get it and at what time do i seed?

Alex_in_FL – posted 19 March 2004 19:22

Joe: You don’t need a professional to care for zoysia. It is the easiest grass I have ever seen to manage short of just letting what ever you want grow in your yard. The only problem I have ever had is bermuda trying to sneak into the yard. You can use just about any weed killer on zoysia so you can fight everything from crabgrass to nutgrass. Plus, very few weeds survive in a thick zoysia yard.

Jr: I don’t recommend seeding with zoysia. I know little about the seed variety. I would plug my yard with zoysia. Use Empire if you want a thick blade easy to cut with rotary mower. Use Empress if you keep blades sharp or are willing to use a reel type mower.

Anytime from now (mid March) until fall is a fine time to install zoysia. If you plant now you can probably plant on 8 inch spacing and fill in by end of summer. I had the best success by cutting sod strips into about 8 to 10 pieces, submerge them in water for about 15 minutes then planting deep (sod level or slightly below groundlevel).

Good luck, let me know how it goes.