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Dubya's Lawn Journal (Zoysia, St. Augustine)

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63K views 223 replies 20 participants last post by  dubyadubya87  
#1 ·
Howdy all! New forum member after creeping and reading posts for quite some time.

Starting this thread to document and detail my front lawn renovation so I can get any pointers, advice and also review my progress. Hopefully I can get the experts out there to weigh in with their experience.

A little background: The front lawn in question 'came with' the house and is the original centipede lawn which I assume the original owner (25 years) installed. Centipede would probably rank lowest on my desirable turf grasses because I enjoy frequent mowing, fertilizing, spraying, tinkering etc. It's my 'therapy'! But given the expense of moving and settling in, I decided to make do as much as possible.

The first two years (this will be my third spring in the home) have been a broad strokes approach to getting the lawn in passable condition. With the significantly smaller lawn I was able to ditch the riding tractor for a basic Scotts reel mower. That, plus post-emergent weed control (Trimec) and light fertilization yielded good enough results that I started a pre-emergent (Balan, Treflan) program, applying in August (2019) and this February. Now what I'm left with is a few patches of centipede and many bare spots where the crabgrass was.

My initial thought was to overseed with centipede, but since I'd be doing the heavy lifting of seeding, why not switch entirely? So I've decided to kill the existing centipede (as much as possible) and seed with Zenith Zoysia once soil temps are ideal (northeast Texas).

Until it's warm enough to seed, my plan is to start killing the existing lawn with glyphosate. I'm told that with the stolon spreading action of centipede, this could take time? During this, I also plan to begin leveling and prepping the soil by bringing in screened compost. I have no illusions that this will be weed seed free, but my thought is that I can kill most of the weeds in the compost during my destruction of the centipede. Once the soil temps get to and stay around 70, I'll seed, fertilize and cover with top soil.

I'll be posting progress pictures and welcome any feedback or pointers. Thank you.
 
#3 ·






Okay, here is my front yard/project site as of this morning. You'll see the recent tree I removed which will definitely help in another month or so when I plant my grass seed. Bare spots were where crabgrass had taken over, but you can also see yellowing and dead spots in the centipede from the one application of glyphosate. Weather permitting, this weekend I will begin raking out dead turf and over the next month, continue that, along with spot treatment of glyphos as needed.
Towards the end of April I'll be bringing in screened compost to incorporate, then leveling and putting out lime.
More pics to come.
 
#4 ·




Forgot to post pictures of my backyard St. Augustine (not sure what variety, but not Floratam). I am pretty happy with it's progress. Over the last two years a lot of the dead spots and thin areas have filled in nicely. Pre-emerge caught most of the weeds this year and what it didn't, I'm hand-weeding. I don't think I'll have to spray Trimec for weeds as I have in the past. I give a half-rate feeding every six weeks and deep water only as needed. Cut at highest setting on my 14" Scotts' (2 inches).
I'll post more pics of the backyard when it has fully greened up.
 
#6 ·
Two weeks out from scheduled seeding the sprinkler system decided to spring a leak! What started out as simply replacing one cracked valve, turned into a complete gutting of the valve system and four new valves. The 1" Toros had been in operation for 24 years!
New system has compression fittings which will make any future fixes/changes a little easier.





 
#7 ·
The hard part is finally done and now it's time to try and be patient while waiting for germination.

Based on the soil test, 55lbs of lime and 1.3 lbs of phosphate were added per/M sqft. Fertilizer was spread and then the whole area received one final deep scraping with a hard tined rake prior to seed. Three lbs of Zenith Zoysia was spread over the 2300 sqft, then raked in lightly with a plastic leak rake. Finally the whole area was compacted with a lawn roller. Sprinklers are set at 10 minutes for 10 am, 1 pm and 4 pm. If needed, I can manually do another in the evening or early morning.





 
#10 ·
This is the first growth that I am (fairly) confident is in fact my Zoysia. Last night's low of mid-50's in East Texas is indicative of the past week, but the next 10 days shows a warming trend with overnight lows in the mid-60's. I won't clog the journal with a day by day of the below, but may post a string of them once it's all come up.
I'll answer this before I'm asked: Yes, the soil does look like it has a lot of bark in it. This is just one small area, at the corner, that I had to raise up and level. The local yard was out of good top soil and this was a screened compost with added sand. I figure if I've got sprouts coming up in this, it's going to explode in the top soil.

 
#12 ·
Two weeks post-seeding. Now starting to see growth all over the yard and I'm itching to get my mower on it! Should see lots of growth this week with temps in the high 80's.
Lightly fertilized two areas that had been neglected. After my complete gutting of the valves to my sprinkler system, the heads in these areas 'came back to life'. Will just post and pre-emerge this year to see what grass volunteers and shows up.
Also sprayed Sedgehammer on my St. Augustine as there were a few problem areas.

 
#13 ·
Day 24 post-seeding and I'm seeing sprouts all over the place, plus an abundance of goosegrass, crabgrass and common bermuda. Sprouts are 3/4 to 1" in height and I'm trying to be patient and let them get to 2" before mowing for the first time. I'll then gradually lower mowing height to a final 1/2" maintenance.
East Texas has seen a ton of rain since Saturday, getting 1/2 to 1" every day. This should slacken off today and get some much needed sunshine to those leaves.







 
#19 ·
I've never been looking forward to mowing more than I am today!
Tomorrow my plan is to gently handpull tall weeds and then delicately clip the tall goose and crabgrass with my weed trimmer so my mower can then hit it at 2". Given the height of my sprouts (see below), this should barely graze them, but I'll mow again on Wednesday, at a lower setting. Hydrangea pic for bonus.



 
#20 ·
While there's not a lot of difference in the two, I'm posting before and after mowing pictures for contrast. Between the two is a line-up...a veritable who's who...a 'Usual Suspects', containing a sampling of just a few of the varieties of weed I'll be fighting during all this!
I also spent about three hours Saturday plugging a neglected area with St. Augustine from the back yard.













 
#22 ·
6.11.20
Sprayed Sedgehammer on front yard to knock back the nutsedge and kyllinga.
Also had the bright idea (after watching a view YouTubes that made it look easy) of taking a screwdriver and starting to dig some of the crab and goosecrass out of my seeded area and give Mr. Zoysia more of a fighting chance. I cleared one small area and was very encouraged by the number of zoysia sprouts I found after removing the weed. But let me tell you, that was work! I went at it hard for an hour or so in the evening heat and what I did remove looks nice. But there's just too many weeds right now to do it that way. I know I could spray Celsius or something heat tolerant, just not willing to spend that amount of $$.
I'm two settings from reaching my desired HOC (should hit it next Wednesday). Hopefully the 'mow low' plan of attack will slow the weeds.
The two areas that I plugged with St. Augustine around back are doing well. Handwatering each plug every morning. I hope they appreciate this level of service.
 
#23 ·
Was able to lower mower to desired HOC on the new area. I was surprised at the 'feel' of the zoysia and Bermuda vs the centipede and St. Augustine I was used to: much coarser, thick to mow. Not near as easy as to mow.
Here are some post-cut pictures as well as pictures of the new plugged area. Put down fertilizer at .75lbs of N per M, 15-0-15 w/2% Fe.













 
#24 ·
Sooooo, apparently I have gray leaf spot in my St. Augustine. After reviewing the causes for such, the only thing I can see as a culprit is having dropped my mower height by a 1/2". I'll be applying Bionide's Infuse (Thiophanate methyl) at the curative rate, stat!
Thanks to @CenlaLowell for the catch! This forum, and it's members are the best!





 
#25 ·
Just the usual mow this weekend. I'm continuing to 'allow' my son to do the mid-week trim for pocket change.
Weeds were starting to pop up in between my SA plugs and being as how the areas are smaller, I pulled out my Farmer John standard issue hoe and went to work. I know they'll grow back, but I'm not worried enough to mess with spraying such a small area and it's a good workout hoeing!
 
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