# nswanner's lawn journal 2018



## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

Greetings from a new member. Live in Petal, MS and I am rather new to serious lawn care. I have a lawn thats right at 5000 sq feet in total.

The lawn in its original state was centipede, but due to negligence it became totally overrun by Bahia and weeds.

After 2 summers of attempting to revive it, I decided that it was time to start completely over from scratch. In the fall of 2016 I did a heavy overseed in the fall with Gulf Rye, which made for a beautiful look in the winter time. It looked so good that I was going to do whatever it took to fix the lawn and make it right.

So in May of 2017 I killed the lawn completely with RoundUp. After I let it sit for 2 weeks, I completely tilled up the yard front and back using my grandfathers ancient 1978 model Snapper tiller with a 3.0 hp Tecumseh engine. It may be old but once you set the choke it still to this day cranks on the first pull and works just as good as anything out there.

The only mishap I had during tilling was due to the utility guy. When he came to mark all of the utility lines he marked the cable line as 12 inches deep, and it turned out to be less than 6 inches deep.







The lawn I really wanted was Seashore Paspalum, but to sod with that was too rich for my blood, and on top of that I was concerned about how well it would hold up this far inland in the winter.

So what I went with was my 2nd choice. Pennington Zenith Zoysia seed from Lowes. On the 4th of July weekend in 2017 I spread a layer of compost/manure and tilled it in, and then seeded over it. Then came the tedious task of watering by hand twice a day for what seemed like forever.

The bag had germination time ranging from 14 to 28 days. I have to say from experience that the truth is closer to the 28 days.

Now, almost a year later, the difference is amazing



Most resources I've read on Zenith say that it needs roughly 1 inch of water a week. To keep it from wilting in the high heat and humidity that we have here, it definitely needs a little more than that. Fortunately we're getting enough rain for the most part to cover it, but if we go 4 or 5 days without rain you will definitely see the leaves shrivel up.

I only did one fertilizer application last year after seeding, and that was a heavy handed Milorganite application Labor Day weekend (1 bag front and side yards and 1 bag in the back yard).

This spring I used the Bayer Weed Stop on the lawn to keep the weeds in control, and it worked great. The only things that it didn't handle was some spotty burweed and a little poa that popped up, but those weeds were gone as soon as the temperature hit the mid 80s.

I have already done 2 fertilizer applications this year. The first was a heavy handed Milo Easter Weekend, and the 2nd application was a 13-13-13.

Right now I'm fighting spotty Bahia that's coming in here and there. I've been pulling it by hand but I feel like I'm losing the battle.

Also in the last few weeks another weed has popped up in random locations and I'm having a hard time determining what it is.



I have been mowing my lawn at 1 inch trying to promote lateral growth and to thicken up the lawn, which has worked very well.

I'm to a point where I'm trying to decide how to combat the bahiagrass problem. Should I buy an herbicide like MSM turf or should I grown the lawn a little bit taller and keep pulling the bahia and hopefully the taller lawn drowns out the sun from the bahia and kills it off that way. I'm thinking that the MSM would also take care of the weed that I posted a picture of above.

I've also read that bahiagrass will not grow in high nitrogen soils, but I've also read that it thrives in those conditions.

Any advice of how to end this Bahiagrass battle once and for all would be greatly appreciated.


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## pennstater2005 (Jul 17, 2017)

Welcome to TLF @nswanner!!! I'm a cool season guy so I can't really give much advice concerning your Zoysia although it's beautiful :thumbsup:

I see you used Bayer Weed Stop for the weeds. I'm assuming that's a post emergent product. Did you apply a pre emergent product to get a barrier down to prevent weeds before they've been able to germinate?

Not sure how familiar you are with some of these terms but ask away!


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## Lawn_newbie (Jun 19, 2018)

Love looking through other people's lawn journal.

That was a of labor of love. How long did it take to till?


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## Grass Clippins (Apr 30, 2018)

So it can be done...zoysia can be grown from seed. You're an inspiration.


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## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

The Zenith can be purchased in a bag at Lowe's or Home Depot. It is a seed/mulch mixture and here it retails for about $40 a bag. One thing that I wished I would have done differently is that I should have bought an extra bag or two and spread the seed a little thicker. That may be part of the reason why I'm fighting Bahia in spots.

It takes a good 3 weeks to see any kind of germination, and that's using a good watering program.


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## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

As far as the tilling goes I set it to the deepest setting. Compaction was somewhat of an issue in the backyard but no issue at all in the front. I made passes with about a 20% overlap going east to west and then repeated going north to south. Took me all day because I used the slowest speed setting.


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## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

I didn't use a pre emergent because I was skeptical about applying it to such young turf. Will definitely put something down late winter next year


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

nswanner said:


> I didn't use a pre emergent because I was skeptical about applying it to such young turf. Will definitely put something down late winter next year


You and I made the same mistake :lol: lesson learned! Go forward with MSM to kill the bahia because it is labeled to also take care of that weed you pictured, which looks to me like spurge. I can't zoom in on the picture, but if you change it to the "Hotlink for forums" link in your post, we can zoom in on it and try to give you a positive ID. I picked up a small bottle at my Feed & Seed store for $20, it's pretty inexpensive.


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## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

I bought a small bottle of msm today. Forgot to pick up some surfactant but will add that before I put it down next week.


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## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

Haven't mowed in 10 days due to busy schedule and sick child but i think I like the taller look


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## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

It's been 3 weeks now since I applied the MSM. It has worked wonders on killing off the bahiagrass and the spotted spurge I was fighting. It took a while, but now the spurge has all yellowed and in some spots the spurge leafs have disappeared altogether. The lawn's growth has been stunted somewhat, but I am aware that's a temporary side effect.

I do have a question that someone hopefully can answer. Would it be a good idea to go ahead and put another app of fertilizer down to help the grass overcome it's damage from the MSM, or should I wait a bit longer?


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## sanders4617 (Jul 9, 2018)

I wanted to plant Zoysia, but I've heard so many act like it's nearly impossible to do from seed. Maybe one day I will, but I just planted 1000 sq ft of Bermuda, so I guess I'll go with it for a while lol.

Looks great!!


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## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

Thanks. There have been some challenges for sure but the end result so far has been outstanding and when we buy our next home I will definitely plant zenith there too. Only thing I will do differently is buy a reel mower, hopefully one that has interchangeable cartridges so I can also verticut with it.


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## nswanner (Jun 27, 2018)

Just wanted to show an update to how the backyard looks. Mowed Sunday.

It has taken a little longer than I expected but the turf has finally started to move in closer to the trunk of the live oak.

I want to run a dethatcher through the yard in a few weeks before my last fertilizer app of the year but I'm not sure whether to do it now or just wait until green up in the spring. Was thinking about overseeding for winter but I may not do that the longer I think about it


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