from Zoysia Farms??

Just curious. It was in a mailer we received and it looks interesting. We may give it a shot, but I was wondering if anyone had any information about it.

www.zoysiafarms.com

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this stuff is only for use in climates that are warm all year round. in the winter it turns *completely* piss yellow and it will spread like a weed to your neighbor's properties. i HATE that shit; some people in our neighborhood have it and its closing in on my yard

but yeah it is really hard to kill, you pretty much have to rip the shit out by the roots.

 

from that site:

 

yeah, I read that on the site. It's also on the mailer thing we got. I don't mind if it does that since it will be in the backyard.

I would be concerned about it spreading into the neighbor's yards though. I'd hate to have to edge our entire property to prevent that from happening. Strange that there's no way to stop the spreading like that. Doesn't make sense that more people wouldn't have complained about that....

Thanks for the info though. Definitely appreciate it as we want to make an informed decision before we do anything...

 

Not a big fan of teh Zoysia. Do you have an option for a nice Kentucky Bluegrass? Not sure what zone you are in out that way... It doesn't take over like a weed and some varieties have such a lush green look.

Mine is like a plush rug... Likes water though. Do you or will you have an irrigation system?

 

Scrib that's exactly what I planted a little while ago. Best looking grass available IMO. I'm hoping I can keep up with the maintenance when it starts sprouting in the spring.

 

btw, i'm told by several veteran homeowners that it's best to mix several different types of grass to maximize the year round look of your lawn. zoysa doesnt play well with others though so you can't do that if you go that route.

 

We have Fescue down here. Not sure if we could do Kentucky Bluegrass. Trying to do something that looks nice but doesn't require too much maintenance. I mean, putting the pool in eliminates most of the grass, which means mowing won't take long... but looking for something that grows well on slopes and looks nice with little maintanence

Right now we do not have irrigation in the back, however, it's in the plans. Between the grass, trees and shubs we're installing in the back, irrigation will not be far behind once the pool is all done....

 

My father in law has it and it's pretty much indestructable once it's established (takes a few years to fill in). It looks awesome in the spring/summer/fall, but does turn brown in the winter. It's pretty much bug, weed, dog and kid proof and grows in just about any soil, on slopes, and in full sun or partial shade. I don't believe it's really that invasive -- certainly not as much as bermuda grass. I'm planning on using it in our backyard this year since between all the neighborhood kids and the dog's bear claws, regular grass doesn't stand a chance. BTW, I went to college with a girl who was somehow related to the Friedberg's (daughter?) which is how I first heard of it years ago. I've driven by there a few times and it's quite an operation.

 

If you want some Zoysia I can send you this shit I'm going to rip out of my lawn this year.

Zoysia is a pain in the ass to grow in cold climates. It does look good in the summer, but it looks like straw in the winter. You will find that it won't spread everywhere. It will avoid shady areas. If you put it in shade it will spread very slowly there.

Once Zoysia is in your lawn it is very very difficult to get it out. kill zoysia.

I do like the way it looks when its nice and thick. If I lived in the south I would grow it. My dad liked it because it was drought tolerant and choked out weeds. It annoyed him that he couldn't get it to grow in certain areas of the lawn, no matter what he did.

Also, Zoysia is best cut short, while the other grass in your lawn is best cut higher.

 

Zoysia sounds a lot like St. Augustine which is what I'm told I have. The old owner didn't take care of it and there's so much thatch built up and since its hardly grown since October, its all crappy and yellow looking. I want to replace it with Marathon sod which looks nice and dark green all year long but its going to be big bucks to have the old stuff ripped out. The guy who bid the job said they have to dig pretty deep or the St. Augustine will come back like the low, creeping weed it is.

 

Hey, thanks for the replies guys. It's good to hear that some people like it! Our backyard gets sun almost all day. Well, not totally true... depends on the season. In the winter it gets sun about 4-6 hours from morning till early afternoon... and in the summer probably about 5-8 hours since the sun is higher.

I'm not worried about "other grass" b/c right now the backyard is concrete (from the pool decking) and dirt/clay (which is our soil). There is no grass back there now. We would just plant it and that would be our yard.

I'm not worried about turning nasty in the winter. Based on the temps down here I would say it would only look nasty for about 2-3 months... which doesn't really matter b/c we would not be using the backyard then anyway.

The only thing that concerns me is having it creep over to my neighbor's yard. We have one neighbor to our left and I would probably just edge our yard with that stuff they sell on the site to prevent it from spreading. The other side of the house has a little corner that meets our neighbors yard, so I'd put some there too. The rest is woods, which in the summer is rather shady b/c of all of the foliage... so it probably wouldn't even spread there.

Anyway, thanks for the replies. I'll be working in the yard this weekend, so I'll have to measure it up to see how much of this stuff we're going to need so I can plan ahead.

Question for those that do have experience with it.... how much of a pain is it to plant? Seems like a very labor intensive process...

 

FYI, I talked to one of my landscaper friends and they had nothing but good things to say about it. Still wondering how tedious it is to plant... but we may try some out to see...

 

Depending on cost, I would go with sod. I read that growing from seed is difficult. My dad used plugs when he did the yard. After plugging it took many years for it to fill in.

 

Yeah, sod is on the list too. We may just purchase a small amount of Amsoy plugs and see how it grows in. According to their website it takes 2-3 years to fill in if you plant the plugs 12" apart. If you halve that and go 6", it halves the time (so makes it 1-1.5 years). We'll see. Depends on the timing of everything b/c if the yard isn't done by summer, we won't be doing anything grass related until fall...

 

I've got to tell you...we live in new construction and sod is not on my list of cost-effective approaches to growing grass. Our builder supplied sod for our front and side. It did not do very well through its first summer (laid in the fall). We then got sod for the rear. It did not do well either during this past summer and got infected with crab grass- since I could not lay down the anti-crab grass fertilizer b/c of the new sod and when it was laid. I've since torn up the rear and started over with seeding. Yeah it took several times laying down the seed but I have a much nicer rug in the rear than in the front which was sodded and then overseeded several times. Add to that the cost of sod and I'm not a fan.

I've got to say that I'm trying my fescue lawn one more summer and if it does bad again, I'm going w/the zoysia. My buddy at work has it and raves about it. It does look bad in the winter though but looking around my area- most yards do. The other thing for me is that I cannot rationalized paying 5K for an irrigation system to pay more $$$ for the water when I could use zoysia and not need to water. Just my

 

keg1997... same boat as you. Our sod actually looks OK, and hopefully it will look better this year since we did a bunch of overseeding in the fall and just a few days ago. If we did sod we'd wait until the fall to drop it down, but I'm with you... I'm not a huge fan of spending $100 or so per month on watering a lawn. It doesn't mean that much to me.

We're still up in the air, but we're leaning towards trying the zoysia in one area to see if we like it...

 

Bean- let me know what you do....our locations can't be too different as far as climate goes...