# My Experience with Zoysia in Southern California



## vanawesome (Jul 17, 2017)

HI, Just joined up after watching @Grassdaddy plug the forums on his youtube channel.

Figured I would introduce myself and give a background on my lawn progression.

I'm Joe, also a youtuber but not a lawn youtuber. www.youtube.com/vanawesome

I moved into my house in 2012 which had new sod in the front, and a nasty population of weeds in the back. I mowed and watered the front until my (now ex) wife "forgot" to pay the water bill for so long that they shut it off and when they turned it back on, they only rotated the valve half way so my sprinklers had 1/2 the pressure that they should have had. My lawn completely died in 3 weeks, and I couldn't get it back. It was her one and only financial responsibility... whatever, I'm not bitter I promise. :?

So I ripped it out. And Lived with a dirt lot in the front and back for about 3 years. Keeping the weeds dead... Like my heart... LOL.



I then planted Zoysia seeds in the front and the back, along with Zoysia plugs in the front. 

I did this in the later summer/early fall. I achieved germination in the front and back, but the plugs all failed in the front, I think mostly because rabbits came and ate them to the roots. Some germination occurred, but not much.

The back yard germination took much better and I had about 50% coverage in the yard going into winter, when it stopped growing and weeds started to come in strong as spring approached. 


So I over seeded with more zoysia seed, and also Perennial Ryegrass. My thought process here was that I wanted a quick germinating grass that would give the zoysia something to invade. This surprisingly worked, and as of right now, the zoysia is about 80% coverage with the rye giving way nicely. 


I re-tilled, and re-seeded the same rye in the front and it sprung up super quick, thick, and looks really nice. However as the summer is heating up, I am getting some dead spots, and I think zoysia is starting to pop up throughout the lawn. I am expecting the zoysia to eventually take over the rye in the front as well. I'm interested to see how much zoysia comes in. 


Welp, thats where I am at. Thanks for reading the novel. It's proven to be nearly impossible for anybody in my neighborhood to maintain a yard which makes it all the sweeter that mine is looking as good as it does.


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## dfw_pilot (Jan 28, 2017)

Love that rye. Nice work and welcome to TLF!


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## Redtenchu (Jan 28, 2017)

That Rye grass is stupid green, I love it!


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## Duxa (Dec 24, 2018)

Im in Southern California as well (orange county). Was thinking about putting down Zoysia in the back (I got Marathon 2 in the front). What variety of Zoysia did you use and where did you buy the seed?

Hows it looking these days?


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## davidc (Jul 8, 2018)

How's your Zoysia coming along. I live in the Riverside area and am looking at it for our backyard.


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