new house grass
 

is it me or what.look at some new houses and the grass looks terrible. cant they water and feed it??? I don't mean a few but most them look so shabby,bare spots and dryed up .

There is quite a bit of transplant shock with Zoysia grass. It may take up to a year to look really healthy. The last thing you want to do is feed a stressed plant, but daily watering is a must.

Once the house has been built and the sod put down, the grass is not maintained other than watering. Bushes are semi- trimmed. Some houses have sat empty for a year. These lawns will frequently have infestations. It can be quite a challenge for a new homeowner to get the lawn up to snuff.

Thank you for the explanation. The grass looks horrible in much of Hillsborough (including our lawn). I never thought about the lawn being in shock. We have talked about replacing the lawn with St. Augustine.

Water and wait. Watering is important.

Here in Dunedin the Zoysia in many of the new homes looked terrible. The landscaper has been coming thru replacing many front and back lawns. The new sod had army worms plus a lot of weeds. The landscaper is responding to the concerns and replacing the sod that is beyond help. It's starting to look better.

Zoysia require lots of water when first put down. If you take notice when we have dry spells, and the grass turns brown, it still comes back. Once green, you just need to water twice a week. Guaranteed though, within a years time, you will start getting Bermuda mixing in with Zoysia. The lawn cutters bring it in from the seeds they cut when cutting other homes. Can't be helped unless they rinse mower after each cutting (ain't happening) LOL

If you replace the zoysia with St. Augustine, please speak to your neighbors first so they won't be surprised when it takes over their lawns. If they don't mind or care, have them talk to their neighbors to let them know what will happen. Changing to St. Augustine carries some problems as well.

I've been in my home for eight years. The lawn struggled for a while until I changed to Zoysia Green to fertilize my lawn every other month. Looks great now. Please give it some time, care, and water.

I would be very upset if my neighbor planted St Augustine and I'm sure many others would as well. I just spent 5 years trying to kill it in TX when a neighbor did that--it spread into my gorgeous bermuda..

After 18 months of constant struggle with my turf, I took pictures to the extenstion agent. He looked at them and said soil problems. (remember, they put about a 1/4 inch of top soil on top of the sand.)

Had Adam Neusbaum from Black Kow come out and put down 3 cu yards of cow poop mulch on my yard. Watered a lot the first week. I now have the greenest yard on the block. It is also *finally* closing up the empty spots in the turf and choking out the weeks.

Oh yeah. For those who worry, the compost doesn't smell at all. It is very well aged and them micro-screened before delivered.

What kind of grass do you have?

Empire Zoysia

Not sure as to the type of grass but I think you probably need a month of daily watering. Probably 50 or 60 minutes a zone. Then twice a month until fall. I would not replace until you went a year. It will probably comeback. I would lightly fertilize.