# Walt's Zoysia Lawn Journal



## waltonereed (Aug 16, 2020)

Starting this lawn journal to formally document the progress on my yard (up till now it's been poorly documented with random iPhone photos of progress).

*Background:* We moved into this new construction house in early 2019. We decided to pay for the "upgraded" grass and had the builder plant Z52 (Meyer) zoysia. Unfortunately/unsurprisingly, they did a poor job of grading the lot and most of the yard is hard red clay. I have always loved mowing grass and even got to reel mow one of our yards growing up. I knew I wanted to get a reel mower for this new yard but took a while to get my wife on board with getting one.

*2019-2020 Seasons: *The first two seasons I used my Honda rotary mower and had weeds/fertilizer managed by a local company. My dog's urine also destroyed my entire yard, so I knew changes needed to be made for 2021.

This was my lawn by the end of 2020:


2021 Season: I wanted to take my lawn to a new level:

I purchased my Baroness

I purchased rotary scissors

I hired a new (better) company for weeds/fertilizer

I purchased a Flowzone backpack sprayer by the end of the season

I put in a lot of work with scalping from 1.5" to 0.25", scarifying twice, and mowing at least 2x/week

My wife trained our dog to pee on the side hill so as to preserve my precious grass

We gutted/added several beds after getting a landscape architect to draw up a plan
We had lots of rain, so I ended up mowing at 0.6" by the end of the season (after starting around 0.4"). By late summer, I began spraying my own chemicals (like T-Nex and surfactants) to alleviate the stress of mowing 3+ times a week and help with the hard clay from the construction. At the end of the season, I decided to have a go at spraying my own chemicals for the entire yard. I sprayed Prodiamine in October along with a getting a proper soil test.

This was my lawn by the end of the season:


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## waltonereed (Aug 16, 2020)

It's almost mid-March, and I've been slacking with spraying another round of pre-em. I want to get an alternative to Prodiamine, so I'm thinking about buying a quarter of Esplanade 200 to get full coverage.

Unfortunately I already have a few buggers starting to pop up (not sure what they are). 



On the upside, I already have some grass greening up, which I can't say the same for any of my neighbors (you can see the urine spots where my dog was disobedient this winter).


I also need to do further research into my soil test and figure out a plan of action for the season. Any recommendations for products are always welcome!


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## waltonereed (Aug 16, 2020)

After freezing cold temps over the weekend, we're back to warmer weather this week. This morning I sprayed 1/3 annual rate of Dismiss and 1/4 annual rate of Prodiamine. Hoping to knock out whatever random weeds I do have and prevent others from popping up.


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