Zoysia Grass

[fortyseven2n]

Has anyone used the Zoysia grass plugs on their yards ?

I saw an ad in a magazine and looked at a website that sells the plugs and it sure looks good.

But I really would like to hear from someone who with real world experience before I try it.

Right now I have a mix of fescue and crabgrass.From what I have read, the zoysia grass will eventually choke out the other grasses.

That sounds good but I don't want something that will take over everything and wind up being a nuisance.

By the way, I am in central North Carolina with plain old red clay dirt.

Thanks !!!

Fortyseven2n

 

[jeffinsgf]

I have a love/hate relationship with my zoysia lawn. Mostly love, but some of the frustrations are really nagging.

First off, forget the "Amazoy" ads. There is much better product out there for less money.

There are a couple of varieties of zoysia that can be established from seed, which is what I did. Google search and you'll find lots of other, more reputable companies looking to sell you seed, sod, plugs or sprigs.

Here are some of the things that have been annoying.

Zoysia is extremely hard to establish in even the least little bit of shade.

If you seed, you need the bed as nearly free of weed seed as you can possibly get it. The problem is, zoysia seeds take a long time to germinate, and when they do, the piants are tiny for a long time. If crabgrass or residual fescue gets started, it will overtake the zoysia. If I had it to do over again, I would prepare my seed bed and start watering, get all the seeds at the surface germinated, knock them down with glysophate and then sow the zoysia without disturbing the soil again.

Unlike fescue, KBG or other cool season grasses, you can't just throw out some seed at any time of the year and get some germination (if watered). The soil temp to get zoysia growing has to be over 70 degrees. Whatever your evening lows are, that's going to be very close to your soil temp. The young plants are very susceptible to cold damage, so you have to be sure that you have 10 or 12 weeks between planting and any chance of frost. Boil it all down and your window to work with is pretty tight -- Early June to late July around here -- in NC you might have from May till mid-August.

When it goes dormant in the winter it is brown. No, let me rephrase that, when it goes dormant in the winter it is BROWN! It looks flat dead. It's not, but it sure looks it -- every year.

Here are the positives

It really does handle the heat well -- not to the extent the ads talk about, but well.

The color and texture are gorgeous. It feels like walking on carpet. I love to go barefoot in my lawn.

It takes short mowing very well. Now that one is double-edged. It wants to be mowed no higher than 2" and mine does best if I keep it closer to 1-1/2". While this will make your yard look like a fairway, the grade has to be nearly perfect and the width of your mower has to be matched to the contours. I have had to give up my 60 inch deck because it leaves funny little ridges as is dips or skips over the countours. My 48" deck is better, but not perfect. I am not going to mow an acre with a push mower. My next move may be a used triplex reel mower from a golf course (three 26" wide hydraulically driven reels that float independently).

Probably more than you wanted, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[fortyseven2n]

Thanks for the reply.

This will be a big help in making a decision on what to do.

Thanks Again !
Fortyseven2n

 

[have_blue]

Has anyone used the Zoysia grass plugs on their yards ?

I saw an ad in a magazine and looked at a website that sells the plugs and it sure looks good.

But I really would like to hear from someone who with real world experience before I try it.

Right now I have a mix of fescue and crabgrass.From what I have read, the zoysia grass will eventually choke out the other grasses.

That sounds good but I don't want something that will take over everything and wind up being a nuisance.

By the way, I am in central North Carolina with plain old red clay dirt.

Thanks !!!

Fortyseven2n

Been there, done that.

I live in Louisiana, and found (the herd way) that Meyer Z52 Zoysia is not suitable for my area.

*It's too hot and damp in the summer, and the roots overheat.
*Too much early morning dew, and it gets rust.
*Too wet in winter, and the roots drown

I'm thinking that NC would be a perfect climate for it.

FWIW, I prefer the fine blades and greener color of bermudagrass to the coarse, blue-looking Zoysia. A dwarf variety such as Princess 77 needs very little mowing to look great. It does need lots of fertilizer and weed killer, however.

 

[EddieWalker]

I tried it,but gave up after about two months of ntohing happening and watering it twice a day. The plant guy on the radio says it's the best thing going if you can get it started, but I think he must be talking about a certain type of zoysa and I got the wrong type. I did notice it on a few high scale homes around here, and it's always the very first to turn brown at the first sign of cold weather.

My thinking on the ultimate lawn grass is centipede. It's a very, very slow growing warm weather grass that takes a few years to take over. Bermuda is planted with it to fill the lawn quickly, but he centipede will choke it out in time. It stays green well into winter and turns grean quickly in the fall.

My second choice is bermuda. There are all sorts of varieties and it's even on allot of golf courses. If you shop around, you can find a seed that has ver fine blades, is deep green and fairly slow growing. Mine is all pasture types for animals in the future, so I don't know off hand what type to recomend. It doesn't really matter, you have to find out what works in your area anyway.

Eddie

 

[BizDoc]

I did the Zoysia Plugs. It does take over other parts of the lawn, it just spreads out unabatedly. As stated above, it does turn brown in the fall and stays brown until spring. But it does have a nice green during the entire summer without thinning in the heat of mid summer. Mowing is not a problem as it doesn't grow upwardly quickly. I found it to hold up well to traffic. I planted it on a hill side because I didn't want to mow that often and it worked very well. It did take quite a while for the plugs to fill in, probably two years. but after it filled in it made a nice lawn.

 

[diyDave]

What you need to do is to get the plugger, or better yet two, and go find someone who lives near you and has a good looking Zoysia lawn (variety doesn't matter, as long as it looks good, and is in the same type of soil as yours). Offer to buy some plugs, from their lawn, as it looks so good, lay it on thick, lavish the praise, and they just might give it to you for free, just promise not to take too many from one place in their lawn. I put 2 plugs, on 2' centers into a fescue lawn and it took about 3-4 years to close the net, now you can't tell where the fescue spot was. Sod farms also sell the sod, and sometimes the plugs. I have also bought the sod, and plugged it as many times as I could get out of it, then layed the holey mat of sod on a bare spot, and had it take good enough to plug out of next year! If you do it during the hot part of the year, you'll have to keep the plugs watered good, but I've had good luck with zoysia.

 

[jeffinsgf]

What you need to do is to get the plugger, or better yet two, and go find someone who lives near you and has a good looking Zoysia lawn (variety doesn't matter, as long as it looks good, and is in the same type of soil as yours). Offer to buy some plugs, from their lawn, as it looks so good, lay it on thick, lavish the praise, and they just might give it to you for free, just promise not to take too many from one place in their lawn. I put 2 plugs, on 2' centers into a fescue lawn and it took about 3-4 years to close the net, now you can't tell where the fescue spot was. Sod farms also sell the sod, and sometimes the plugs. I have also bought the sod, and plugged it as many times as I could get out of it, then layed the holey mat of sod on a bare spot, and had it take good enough to plug out of next year! If you do it during the hot part of the year, you'll have to keep the plugs watered good, but I've had good luck with zoysia.

You can also cut sod into strips, and lay the strips a foot or two apart.

 

[have_blue]

My thinking on the ultimate lawn grass is centipede. It's a very, very slow growing warm weather grass that takes a few years to take over. Bermuda is planted with it to fill the lawn quickly, but he centipede will choke it out in time. It stays green well into winter and turns grean quickly in the fall.

Eddie

I second that Eddie!

In my area, Centipede is the best looking, easiest grass to grow. It really is care free, and stays a bright green. It needs little or no fertilizer, and I never have to water mine. Unfortunately, it grows faster than zoysia, but not as fast as St. Augustine or bermuda. For lawns, it needs mowing weekly. For fields, you can get away with bush hogging it once or twice a year. I have centipede growing on 1/4 mile of pond levees, and the tallest it ever gets is about 8".

 

[MacLawn]

In my east central Georgia red clay, it is definitely centipede! Won't do so great in shade, but this stuff is tough! I love it...