If you have that much shade most of the day, there are only two varieties of zoysia that might survive. At least one of those does not come in sod and it is unlikely you have the other one. If you have any control over the shade, it would help your lawn to trim the trees. Otherwise you will be limited to unconventional ground covers (not a lawn) or one of two grasses. Some of the fescues or St Augustine can enjoy limited success in shade like you have.

99% of the people who write in from LA do not live in LA. Can you please be more specific? If you do live in LA, please give the neighborhood but you likely live in a suburb.

You might be able to salvage this. Start by backing off on watering. Your gardener doesn't know anything about watering grass. You will have a diseased mess on that schedule. And that might be your problem now. It sort of depends on whether you live more toward West Covina or El Segundo. In either case gradually move to once per week watering. If you live in the fog zone near the coast you might be able to back off to once every 10 days to 2 weeks. How long you water depends on your system. Turn it on and measure how many minutes it takes to fill a tuna or cat food can. Start by watering for that length of time and go to every 6 days to water. Watch the grass carefully. If it needs water before 6 days are up, water it immediately and restart the clock. The deep watering will eventually develop deep roots in your grass. Those roots will be able to capture that deep water and survive longer than a few days with the sprinkler off.

I have "El Toro" which is supposed to be pretty shade resistent. I live in the Hollywood Hills. 90068 zip code. LA proper.

How do I know if it needs water before the 6 days are up?

Thanks!

Good - the key word is HILLS. For all intents and purposes, you do have all the micro climate benefits of living in LA. You are almost out of the fog zone or at least at the far edge of it. Also a modest bit of the moisture from the sea breeze is gone by the time it gets to your elevation. I'm assuming you're around 800 feet. The air cools as it rises and loses moisture as fog and dew along the with the rise. Your air is slightly more arid than down the hill. El Toro would be a good first try. Backing off on watering should make a big improvement. I would think you could get away with deep watering once every 10 days to 2 weeks after you got the roots adjusted.

The grass will signal you when it is dry. Unless you get on your hands and knees to see if the grass blades are folding up, then watching color is the best way to know. Watch for any color change in the lawn. If any part of the lawn starts to look like it is darkening, water the entire lawn immediately. Check it in the afternoon or early evening. Then water deeply the next morning.

Have you fertilized since you installed the lawn? I'm not suggesting it needs it - just asking. Anything else you've done since then? Spray for weeds? Weed n feed? Again, not suggesting anything - just asking.

Thanks so much for your help! I have not done any fertilizing or spraying, etc. The lawn is only a few months old so I have basically just been watering and watching it so far and not happy with the results. I will try your changes and report back how things go. How long do you think it should take before I see improvement in the brown spots (to know if it is working or not)?

How long? Awww jeeze! Hard to know with zoysia. I have experimented with it and am not thrilled. In mine, once it goes dormant for any reason, it does not seem to reawaken until the following spring. I just noticed tonight my wife has let it go dormant by not watering. Last weekend when I was home it looked good. Now it's dormant. It happens just that fast. So that's it for this year. I can water it every day from now on and it will not come back until April. So I'd not give up on it before next summer. Don't water it every day. Do what I suggested earlier.

Dchall,

There is a noticeable difference between fine bladed and coarse bladed zoysia. The coarse type is definitely more hardy than fine bladed. That's probably why you're having problem with your fine bladed zoysia.

jtmla,

My mother has El Toro. It appears to be very tough grass after one of the worst drought ever to hit Houston, Tx. There was a massive st augustine grass die off but apparently El Toro spread everywhere over the past 15 years. They simply filled in where St augustine died. They have been lurking in st augustine after all these years that I never noticed.

Follow what dchall said about watering practice. Deep watering when it needs it. One inch of water is 600 gallons of water for every 1000 sqft of lawn. Depending on your type of sprinklers, it could take 1-4 hours to achieve that amount of water.

Zoysia is basically do nothing once they fully established. Only once or twice fertilizing a year. That's it.

I live in the High Desert area of California, specifically the Quartz Hill area. We have just been placed on water rationing of 2 times per week. Any suggestions as to a type of grass that will survive in this high heat, windy and as low as 15 degree winter mornings

Yeah, they talk like they're serious about saving water, but I guess not yet. In San Antonio we can only water once every 2 weeks. Both St Augustine and bermuda grasses do fine here. Some of the St Aug's are more cold tolerant, but most can go to 15 if it doesn't last very long.

You might look at some hybrid buffalo grasses - the non seeded kinds. Seeded buffalo grasses tend to be very thin and weedy.