Unsatisfied with your Lawn Mowing company?

[ZoysiaSod]

I care for my own lawn, but I thought I'd talk about my next door neighbor's lawn in this post.

My next door neighbor has nothing in his *BACK* yard but crabgrass and henbit. Virtually all the zoysia he had is now gone. He says, "Well, as long as it's green...." [chuckle]

He did fix up his FRONT yard, though, which was also going to pot with a ton of weeds--everything from foxtail to plantains to crabgrass. He paid $500 to his weekly lawn-mowing company to use a machine to aerate his front yard in September and plant a cool-season seed mixture, which looks like its fescue, annual or perennial ryegrass, and maybe a bit of bluegrass. He told me he also personally hand-sewed a whole lot of "Canadian Green" after they aerated. His front yard is about 1,500 to

2,000 square feet.

So the zoysia he once had in *front* is now almost all gone, replaced by the tons of weeds and the newly planted cool season grasses. But of course as I mentioned earlier, his *back* yard is nothing but crabgrass and henbit.

You'd think for $500 the company could have done both his back and front yards, which probably total about 3,000 square feet. But all they did was his front yard. Oh well. He's a good customer too. He let's them cut his lawn every single week whether it needs it or not. And they always cut it way too low. Maybe I should talk to him about it, but I haven't.

My other neighbor also gets his lawn cut weekly, but by a different company, yet this company also cuts his lawn way too low. After every cut, Neighbor Number 2's zoysia lawn looks brownish, having had much of the green cut too low. I don't understand why these lawn companies do that. I haven't uttered a word about it to either neighbor though. I don't want to meddle, I guess.

[Bumpers]

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Don't be a snot. You know as well as I that any grass (whether it's a cool-season grass or warm-season) will suffer if it's cut too low, known as "scalping."

As the books say, cutting more than a third of the grass blade will stunt the roots. So if your grass is way too tall, and you want to cut half its height or even 2/3 of its height, then cut just a third off one day, and wait about 4 or 5 days to cut the other third off. Otherwise, the roots will take a hit.

Although roughly 10 percent of my lawn is fescue--I have an area in the back yard that is nothing but fescue--I do prefer the zoysia. Zoysia comprises 90 percent of my lawn. I enjoy both grasses (and even planted a bit of creeping red fescue and perennial ryegrass in September in addition to the 10 pieces of zoysia sod and plugs I planted earlier in the season), but I gotta say I prefer zoysia simply because I think it's a little more convenient for me in the Transition Zone of St. Louis. The zoysia doesn't seem to need as much water in the summer as the fescue and doesn't grow vertically so fast, although in the heat of the summer, the zoysia will definitely outpace the fescue in vertical growth. Both are good grasses though.

[Bumpers]

Oops, I posted the above message as "Bumpers" but it's me: ZoysiaSod.

[ZoysiaSod]

This reminds me. I read in a book to write down the grass you planted and its variety name so you have a record of it for future reference.

The printed names on the back of my bag of Scotts Turf Builder grass seed (Sun and Shade Mix) is already fading. I can barely read the names anymore, so for future reference:

Fenway Creeping Red Fescue Wendy Jean Creeping Red Fescue

Uno Perennial Ryegrass Silver Dollar Perennial Ryegrass

Wildhorse Kentucky Bluegrass Abbey Kentucky Bluegrass

The percentage of each above is roughly equal.

Other ingredients in the bag are:

0.50 percent Other Crop Seed (I wonder what those crops are?)

50 percent Water Smart Coating (don't eat this seed--chuckle)

1.75 percent Inert Matter (what could this be--all I see is seed in the bag)

0.01 percent Weed Seed (very nice, low percentage)

Noxious Weed Seeds: None Found.

I can't read the seeds' places of origin anymore (totally faded), but I think I remember that the seeds came from Washington State and Oregon.

[trader4]

How did the Zoysia just go away? Zoysia is one tough grass and it takes over everything. I';ve even seen it start to crack asphalt driveways. I've heard of lots of people pissed because it's spreading and taking over there lawn, but never anyone complaining about it disappearing.

The zoysia will soon finish off what's there and the newly seeded grass will just get crowded out.

But of

[ZoysiaSod]

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He used to have a really tall tree in the front yard which he removed a couple years ago, including the stump and maybe even some of the roots. I didn't see the removal process to say exactly what happened, but he was left with a large bare area in the front yard where the big tree used to be. He also said his son-in-law accidentally killed a lot of other zoysia when he did some yard work by leaving debris covered the zoysia for days or weeks. Plus St. Louis saw a drought this summer combined with its hottest July since about 1932, and he was on vacation for a long time during this extended period of drought and super heat.

No one watered the zoysia even a little to just keep the crowns alive. Same thing happened to a couple other people. Had I known what the devastating result would be, I would have watered his zoysia myself from my own hose. Oh well, St. Louis hadn't seen this kind of heat since 1932 or so.

Anyway, I guess for these reasons and others he lost a lot of zoysia the past 2 or 3 years. I do hope you're right, and the remaining zoysia makes a comeback in his yard. He's got so many weeds in front and back.

He's got some super-duper shiny, bright green blades in his yard. I gotta wonder if that's annual ryegrass instead of perennial ryegrass. He did sew some so-called "Canadian Green" himself after the lawn-mowing company aerated and sewed a mixture of what must be fine fescue(s) and ryegrass(es). I hope they used perennial rye but not sure. I bet there was some annual rye in that Canadian Green he used, and he said he used a lot of Canadian Green.

His back yard is a total loss: nothing but huge swaths of crabgrass and a whole lot of henbit everywhere. Almost no grass in back at all. His backyard weeds butt up against my zoysia, though, so hopefully, with the passage of years, my zoysia will spread into his backyard and help it out.

I also hope his weeds don't invade my zoysia. I hope you're right and the zoysia wins over the weeds. That's what the books seem to say, but I dunno if that's always the case for sure.

How does purple nutsedge fare against zoysia?