New zoysia lawn

dwoodrow – posted 17 October 2002 13:00

I am looking to replace my fescue back lawn with zoysia. I currently have zoysia (meyer I think) in my front yard and it looks fantastic. Thick, lush, very nice… I have some contacts where I hope I can get a deal on sod, but I might seed or plug. I live in Atlanta and have an irrigation system. My house faces due east and the back yard gets about 5-6 hours of direct sunlight a day in the summer. One concern I have is a cedar dog ear fence on the south side of my yard, so there may be a strip near the fence that gets no sun at all even during the summer. I love the look of fescue in the fall, winter and spring, but the crabgrass wreaks havoc in the summer. I live near downtown but have trees all around my house: pines, oaks, sweetgums… I know I need to kill the fescue, till the soil, and water till the cows come home. I plan on changing it over in May. Questions i have…

If I seed the yard, how long will it take until it looks like a lawn. (my wife is very concerned about that) Same with plugging or checkerboard… Is retail sod really $250 a pallet? And any advice anyone can give would be great…

Thanks,

David

frenchman – posted 17 October 2002 22:51

First of all, you can not seed Zoysia. Zoysia is a sun and shade type of grass. I just put down 12 pallets of El Toro Zoysia and love. Meyers was my first choice but the company I got it from did not have Meyers, the differents is Meyer is alittle greener and El Toro is alittle more agressive. I got mine from Turfgrass America in Nashville and it cost me $125 a pallet and I believe there is a Turfgrass America in Atlanta, if not it still might be cheaper to have the sod farm in Nashville to deliever it than to pay $250 dollars a pallet. If you decide to sprig your yard with zoysia, you better have patiences because it will take two or so years to have a yard. Zoysia doesn’t creep as fast as bermuda

sodbuster7 – posted 30 October 2002 17:28

You can buy Zoysia for a lot less than $250 in Atlanta. I’ve bought it from SuperSod at the Farmers Market for a lot less.

Personally, I think St.Augustine does best in intown Atlanta with the large trees, shade, etc. I’ve done Mercedes St. Augustine with great success and Zenith Zoysia pretty well too(in sunny areas). You can buy Zenith Zoysia seed from Home Depot. If you are serious about the Zoysia I would investigate several of the hydroseeding companies in Atlanta. You can cover 10,000 square feet of lawn for $700-$800 and get good results. They will also let you buy your own Zenith seed to add to the concentration and mix in their tanks when they spray.