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voncherry

I'm Losing My Battle with Zoysia...

Voncherry
10 years ago

Hello all! I live in San Antonio Texas and have had my house for 4 months. My lawn is Zoysia. I have an unground sprinkler system set to water at 6am every week. Has a drip system for all the beds. In late spring I put down a fertilizer which really got the yard looking green. We had a stretch of daily rain last month that lasted for a week. Rare for here. Now, I have 3 large areas in my back yard that have turned completely brown, dry and dead. It appears to be slowly spreading. Even my front is started to get a little brown. 4 days ago, I sprayed Bayer Advanced Fungus Control on lawn, just in case it was fungus related. I'm at a loss of what I should do or look into. I'm pretty novice when it comes to lawns, but I live the challenge and learning about it. But, I really want to get to the bottom of this.
Should I put down an insecticide ?
A slow burning fertilizer?
Reseed areas?

I spoke with a local nursery and they had little info. I took pics and they just said to take out the dead areas and put down Michigan Pete composite. Not sure what that is going to do.

Any suggestions or areas I should look into would be greatly appreciated. I would prefer to have a plan of attack instead of paying tons of $$ throwing the kitchen sink at this in hopes something will actually work.

Thanks again for your valuable time

~Barry

Comments (4)

  • emma
    10 years ago

    Sorry can't help you, but you might call one of the places that sells sod. We had it at our last home and loved that stuff. After it covered it pretty well took care of the weeds. It does not like shade, but it looks sunny there.

  • dchall_san_antonio
    10 years ago

    Well I have lots of bad news for you. That is extremely typical of zoysia lawns in San Antonio. We are right on the edge of too humid and hot for whatever variety of zoysia you have. Whatever it is, it is popular.

    If you do nothing you will lose the entire lawn for this season. It might come back next year. If you are lucky your fungicide spray did not kill the entire lawn. The label probably warns you against application if temps are expected to exceed 90 degrees.

    What I normally see in SA is people with zoysia last about 6 months with it, then it does what you are seeing, then they have it cut out and replaced with St Augustine. There is a reason why St Augustine is the dominant turf culture in San Antonio. I know of one zoysia lawn that is gorgeous and one other that is weedy. Both have been installed for more than 5 years without the fungus problem you are having. They are doing something right.

    You said you were watering every week at 6am. Did you mean every day at 6am? If you are watering every day, then that would be the reason the lawn is continuing to die. You will likely lose the rest of the lawn fairly soon. And were you still watering during the rain? I just watered my lawn in SA for the first time in 2 months.

    My advice for a lawn novice would be to cut your losses and put in some St Augustine. If you cannot afford to do the entire lawn, that's okay. St Augustine will spread 5 feet in all directions every spring and fall. If you space out a few flats of it, it will knit together in a year or so and not cost you an arm and a leg to redo.

    Oh and stop listening to your garden shop guy. Start listening to Bob Webster on KTSA AM 550 on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Read the older messages here and look around the Internet for other lawn care forums. Read read read.

  • Voncherry
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Thanks for the replies. I water every Wed morning, once a week at 6am. I measured out to get the timer right to give me 1" of water. I didn't water during the month of daily rain but that was a lot of water. My neighbor who has zoysia, and looks good, told me that it needs a fertilizer ( 19-5-9 slow release) put down in summer. I am going to work that angle next. I've been reading a lot and trying to get a consenses.

    Thanks again

  • dchall_san_antonio
    10 years ago

    Your watering sounds perfect, but that sure looks like it's dry. Are you sure your sprinkler provides an inch in the dead looking area? There is a very nice looking circular shaped area on the upper left in your picture. Then it appears to look worse and worse as you get away from that central green area. If you are sure it is getting an inch right there, then the alternative is a fungus is cutting off the moisture either at the roots or up the stem of the grass. Usually a fungus grows in a circle shape; however, in your case everything but the dead area is a circle shape. I suppose it could still be a disease.

    My experience with zoysia is that once it turns brown it will remain brown until the following spring no matter what you do to it. It doesn't matter whether it turns brown in November or in May, it remains brown the rest of the season until spring whether you throw the kitchen sink at it or ignore it completely.

    If this is a fungus, your only approach is to use an organic product. Chemical fungicides are not supposed to be applied if the temps are going to get above 80 degrees F in the next 48 hours. In San Antonio the last day for applying that sort of chemical is sometime in March or April. The organic approach is to apply ordinary corn meal at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can find it at your local feed store - or you can tell me what side of town you are on and I can direct you to a source nearby. But even if it is a fungus and you do kill it, I still don't have much hope for a green lawn this season.

    If you have the same variety of zoysia as your neighbor, then you should probably listen to him. If not, you either need to find someone who does or look for other options. One option is to change to a grass that can recover from simple goofs or natural disasters. That list includes all the other grasses plus, possibly, whatever zoysia variety your neighbor has.