SMF

There's a spot in the yard where it's mostly shady. In this part of the country the common Bermuda likes sunshine. About 6 years ago I put down Patriot Bermuda sod in the yard, and it's great, but being Bermuda, it didn't thrive in this shady corner of the yard. Fescue likes shade, but doesn't like my yard for some reason, probably too much sun even in the shade. So we're trying Zoysia now. I planted about 400 square feet of seed yesterday, and I'll do my part with the watering every day. They say it does best when the nights are at least 60F.

Very interested in how this works for you.

Interested, too.

Fescue is popular in Georgia (well North GA, anyway). Had it as a yard in a couple of our places when we were in Atlanta. It likes cooler weather, and would never survive a Central Texas summer.

I wasn't aware you could plant zoysia from seed. Keep us posted!

My yard this year is shot to dickents. Common Bermuda, the stuff for the rough, not the tight-knit stuff like some greens. Fescue takes over in February and it seeds up but starts to die out about late May. Bare spots where bermuda once was. Had a tree trimmer take up some limbs on trees to let in more light.

I have had three yard sprayers and they can't keep weeds under control. If i cut it low and mow once a week, looks halfway decent. I have thought about zoysia, and we can only get sod here, and if there was seed, it sells out quickly

In the north east, we plant plugs of Zoysia in one foot spacing, Zoysia is such an invasive grass that, in 2-3 years the entire lawn will be Zoysia. I have never seen seed like Sam. The feeding and watering requirements are much different than most other grass. I could not get use to the fact that Zoysia is dormant longer in spring before greening up and browns earlier in the fall. The allure of an easy to care for lawn wasn't enough to make me use it.

Good Lord! How do you chaps obtain a good bowling green or cricket crease? I know you must have some experience of these important matters as Louis Armstrong told me about Long Gone John:

In Houston, TX, the staple lawn grasses are Bermuda and St Augustine. Our lawn was St Augustine entirely and it made a very attractive yet robust lawn.

I would consider St. Augustine

It sounds as though I shouldn't be expecting very good results this time If it doesn't do well in hot dry climates. My planting was bad timing. We've had record rains in the past week or so since I planted it. Torrential soaking rains are never helpful with seeds. I've been curious about St. Augustine too. I might add that to my growing list of failed attempts.

I, too, was going to suggest looking at St. Augustine. It does well in our hot climate and is very shade tolerant.

I think I should try St. Augustine sod this time around.

This morning I located what appear to be eleven (11) zoysia sprouts in the barren corner where I planted about 2/3 of a pound of seed a couple of weeks ago.

Following up on the large bare spot in the yard: In August we had a very strong wind associated with a somewhat violent summer thunderstorm. Lost 2 trees, and one of them was the reason for the relentless shade causing the bare spot. Problem solved! Now that spring is here I'll look forward to more grass.

Tulsa here: I've tried fescue in shady areas, but it grows way faster and for a much longer season. I haven't tried zoysia and don't plan to because I saw Bermuda growing quite well in the shade, but it was because they had a sprinkler system, and were diligent about fertilizer. Bermuda grass can be manipulated to do several things. My neighbor at another house used a reel type mower and cut the grass at least every week, and watered a couple times per week. He had a perfect lawn no longer than a half inch tall! It looked like a putting green. He fertilized watered and mowed all the way to my driveway, and it looked just like his yard. Bermuda will grow in shady areas, but it will require diligence.

Gary - I think you are in Oklahoma. That might be too far north to grow successfully. I would check to be sure. Way back in our Georgia days we had Fescue (which doesn't run like Bermuda/St A) and doesn't die in the winter. I called the local agricultural office - they told me we lived 50 miles north of the line to grow it successfully - the winters were expected to be too harsh. I thought that was odd - Dallas has harsher winters than Atlanta in mu opinion.

Gene, we've got kinfolks in south Louisiana and their advice was the same as yours. I have a habit of walking all around their well kept yard every time we make the trip down there. Before we settled on the Patriot bermuda I looked into the Zoysia snd St. Augustine and had to rule them out. Now that our previously overshadowed back yard is fully and well established we can see we made the right decision!