Recommendations for shade?

Freshman – posted 30 May 2006 21:19

Hello from Atlanta…

I have a very small area beside our pool deck that was supposed to be fescue grass per my original landscape design. The new landscaping was installed over a year ago; however, the installer used Meyer zoysia instead of fescue. The sod died by fall. This area has very poor drainage and we had an incredibly wet early summer, topped off by a major pool leak in Sept. that we think saturated this area. The landscaper is going to attempt to improve the drainage with some French drains, but now he is telling me there is too much shade for grass in this location. I measured the sunlight over the weekend and the turf area was totally in direct sun for only about two hours, from 10 am until noon. Then shade begins to creep in on one side and the entire area is in the shade by 2:00. Right now it’s hard to know what killed the grass–the soggy marshland or too much shade–or maybe a combination of both.

I really want this small grassy area by the pool deck, but is it a hopeless situation? Assuming he can improve the drainage, should we try another zoysia or go with fescue? I don’t think I want to give up on the grass just yet.

Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated!

KBilly – posted 06 June 2006 13:17

All zoysia I have seen needs at least 3 hours of sun per day, until I saw this. I suggest that you try Shadow Turf, which is a new zoysia cultivar.

See it here: http://turffalo.com/whychoose.asp#shadowturf

It comes in plugs so will take a season the cover a small area.